gathering data to test global warming

site map

a briefing document

On global warming
4 Global warming
4a Anthropogenic global warming, and ocean acidity
4b Energy pricing and greenwash
4c How atmospheric chemistry and physics effects global warming
4d Antarctica melting ice, sea levels, water and weather implications
4e Gathering data to test global warming
4f Arctic melting ice, sea levels
4g Shifting global weather patterns


On housing and making living systems ecological

sustainable futures briefing documents

Index
tracking and measuring global warming is not as easy as cribbage
the complexity of global warming studies

an example of what modern global measurement can do

confusing global and local data
local study over Asia, purporting to be global
now, even nothing to do with the case - trahlah!

tracking and measuring global warming is not as easy as cribbage

Almost every day, articles and claims are made that this proves or disproves global warming, written or made by people who have not the slightest idea of how complex the studies are. Below, in sections 3 and 4, I refer to two local studies which, as you will see, are being widely confused with ‘global warming’, pro or con.

What is particularly amazing is the incredible dogmatism of the ignorant writers of these items. Yet more examples of the arrogance of ignorance.

The next section gives some idea of the complexity of these studies, both parts being taken from today. Then we have a claim for a localised study in America, this week’s extreme example of the “it ain’t happening” tendency purporting to be global. Next there is an Asia-local example, which makes the contrary claim with the same error.

the complexity of global warming studies

“[...] For a range of sensitivity parameters based on manipulative field experiments, we find a significant suppression of the global land-carbon sink as increases in ozone concentrations affect plant productivity. In consequence, more carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere. We suggest that the resulting indirect radiative forcing by ozone effects on plants could contribute more to global warming than the direct radiative forcing due to tropospheric ozone increases.” [Quoted from nature.com]

“[...] Many parts of the world already experience near-surface ozone levels greater than 40 parts per billion (ppb)-levels that can injure leaves and reduce crop yields, the researchers note. Ozone levels are projected to increase substantially during the next century to more than 70 ppb above much of the world's land area.” [Quoted from acs.org]

There are also claims around that nitrogen availability will have the reverse effect, and increase carbon uptake by plants.

“One of the wildcards of global warming is how fast the world's massive ice sheets are melting. Efforts to measure the rate of melting on Greenland and Antarctica--and thereby predict how fast sea levels will rise--are complicated by something called "post-glacial rebound" of the earth's crust. When the crust is relieved of its millennia-long burden of ice, it shifts around a bit, and springs back.”
—
“The stations can detect lateral and vertical changes of the Earth's crust down to the millimeter scale. Equally important, they'll continuously beam out their readings. This data should allow other sensors--which monitor elevation changes, glacial outflow rates, and overall mass of the great ice sheets--to become far more accurate in measuring the rate of ice loss. The international team plans on installing 16 stations in Antarctica later this year as part of the project.” [Quoted from technologyreview.com]

And here is an example of what modern global measurement can do:

Credit:AIRS Science Team, JPL, NASA

“Although originally designed to measure atmospheric water vapor and temperature for weather forecasting, scientists working with the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on the NASA Aqua Spacecraft are now using AIRS to observe atmospheric carbon dioxide.[...] The global map of carbon dioxide above [...] shows that despite the high degree of mixing that occurs with carbon dioxide, the regional distribution can still be seen by the time the gases reach the mid troposphere. Climate modelers are currently using the AIRS data to understand the global distribution and transport of carbon dioxide and improve their models.”

confusing local and global data

The nonsensically titled “Revised Temp Data Reduces Global Warming Fever” is a particularly egregious example from an extremist site.

Note that, in this article, the corrections referred to are only corrections to a USA limited, land level-based series. This is not global. (The USA is 1/50th of the world’s area, so is a ‘local’ planet area.)

Also note that the article is describing how one lot of fudge factors have been replaced by another set, this time called ‘adjustments’.

“[...] replaced by a version of USHCN data with further corrections after an adjustment.”

Map of meteorological observing stations across the 48 contiguous United States.
Credit: CDIAC

The error was picked up by observing the discontinuity in the data, always a red flag that something needs careful checking. In this case, a Y2K error was identified. Despite widespread exaggeration, not only was this an extremely local and not very reliable data series, the correction amounted to approximately one one-hundredth of a degree over the most recent years!

Such corrections are very common. For example, there was an earlier problem where deniers claimed that satellite measurements were not consistent with warming. These claims were found to be in error because the changes in satellite distance had been incorrectly assessed.

This is not ‘exact’ science, but we are gathering better data from year to year, including such corrections as reported here. The consensus remains there is AGW.

LOCAL CHANGES ARE NOT GLOBAL WARMING

Note that the USA is anomolous in being relatively warm in both maps, whereas much of the rest of the Earth is strongly warmer. As you can see from the maps, sometimes warmer and cooler areas have moved around, whereas some places, like the Antarctic, are coloured grey for lack of any data over the earlier time period. Unusually, the USA can be seen to have an approximately similar average temperature, while its west coast has cooled and the east coast warmed.

GISS analysis. Credit:columbia.edu

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james hansen on jesters (useful fools) and irresponsible ceos

This 5-page .pdf includes details on NASA US data adjustment and global warming maps.
James Hansen is the Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies [GISS].

“The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children. The court jesters are their jesters, occasionally paid for services, and more substantively supported by the captains’ disinformation campaigns.

“Court jesters serve as a distraction, a distraction from usufruct. Usufruct is the matter that the captains wish to deny, the matter that they do not want their children to know about. They realize that if there is no ‘gorilla’, then usufruct is not an important issue for them. So, with the help of jesters, they deny the existence of the gorilla. There is no danger of melting the Arctic, of destabilizing the West Antarctic ice sheet, of increasing hydrologic extremes, more droughts and stronger forest fires on one hand and heavier downpours and floods on the other, threats to the fresh water supplies of huge numbers of people in different parts of the globe. "Whew! It is lucky that, as our jesters show, these are just imaginary concerns. We captains of industry can continue with business-as-usual, we do not need to face the tough problem of how to maintain profits without destroying our legacy in our children’s eyes." ”

local study over Asia, purporting to be global

raising more questions than it answers - on brown clouds over asia

“And the haze touches the lower parts of the glaciers in the Himalaya mountain range, said study co-author David Winker, principal investigator of the CALIPSO satellite at NASA's Langley Research Center.

“This suggests that the brown clouds may be contributing to glacial melting in the Himalaya.”

Well, of course it is, some of it will settle on glaciers, thus reducing their albedo. Local air temperatures may also have some effect.

“These particles absorb solar energy and then release it to the surrounding air as heat.”

This sounds like a dubious claim to me (in the context of global warming) as the Earth will shed surplus heat until it returns to natural balance. (See how atmospheric chemistry and physics effects global warming.)

“In contrast, lighter-colored aerosols don't absorb solar energy the way darker particles do.

“These nonabsorbant particles act like a parasol over Earth, reflecting energy back into space [...].” [From page 2 of brown clouds article]

This looks like over-simplification to me, but it is good to see increasing attention to particulates in the atmosphere as this area is insufficiently understood at present.

“ "Our understanding of how air pollution and these brown clouds are influencing climate change is evolving," Ramanathan said.”

Well, that must be true!

“Averaging the effects of aerosols worldwide masks regional processes that "we need to truly understand when we put all the pieces of the planet together," Pilewskie said.”

Doubtless true, but the soup gets mixed around the world over time and the particulates also steadily fall (precipitate) out. They are also involved in rain formation.

“In 1816 (‘the year without a summer’, attributed to a large volcanic eruption), the world experienced slightly less than a 1.8°F/1°C loss in temperature because of a volcano eruption. During the course of 1816, there was frost in New England in July, worldwide crop failures and many other problems relating to the very small drop in average temperatures. There is more on volcanoes and weather here.” [From Global warming]

This National Geographic article, and the source article in Nature, amount to reporting that is thoroughly confused between global warming and local climate effects.

now, even nothing to do with the case - trahlah!

And finally, here is a ludicrous report from another extremist site, headed “Global Warming at Odds With Science”. This article, in fact, refers to a 113-page .pdf, which is a review article going through some irrelevant principles of physics and some previous history of warming theory. The article is fine enough for those interested in esoterica. The paper is not peer-reviewed and rather bleats about the inadequacy of computer models, while ironically, it is promoting physics formulae models. That is a most unconvincing personal preference. Warning: I only scanned to page 63 before coming to the conclusion that the paper was of interest, but effectively irrelevant to most contemporary global warming studies and arguments.

On global warming
4 Global warming
4a Anthropogenic global warming, and ocean acidity
4b Energy pricing and greenwash
4c How atmospheric chemistry and physics effects global warming
4d Antarctica melting ice, sea levels, water and weather implications
4e Gathering data to test global warming
4f Arctic melting ice, sea levels
4g Shifting global weather patterns


On housing and making living systems ecological

sustainable futures briefing documents

email abelard at abelard.org

© abelard, 2007,26 march

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the address for this document is http://www.abelard.org/briefings/global_warming_atmospheric_chemistry_physics.php

2500 words
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