Re: [asa] Global Warming Stats

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 11:05 AM, Lynn Walker <lynn.wlkr@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sorry for the late reply - just got back home.
>
> On 5/25/08, Rich Blinne <rich.blinne@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Lynn's reference talked about the Oregon Institute of Science and
>> Medicine. ... When I was doing my research for my climate change class at
>> church I came upon the deceptive work of Fred Seitz, Fred Singer and the
>> Marshall Institute. Fred Seitz was an advisor to R.J. Reynolds so that they
>> could prove that there was a lack of "scientific consensus" that tobacco
>> causes cancer. [...snip...]
>>
>
> My reply: Just have time to address a couple of your comments, here. I
> hope the graph comes through okay.
>
> http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/05/020585.php
>
> May 23, 2008
> Global Warming: A Primer
>
> In the web site of the New Zealand Centre for Political Research<http://www.nzcpr.com/guest98.htm>,
> Fred Singer offers an excellent summary of the skeptics' view of
> anthropogenic global warming. If you haven't followed the issue in detail
> and want to review the basics, it's a good place to start.
>
> Singer makes one point that cannot be repeated too often: the AGW theory
> depends entirely on computer models, but we know for sure that those
> computer models are wrong. They do not accurately explain either the Earth's
> climate history, or the present distribution of global temperatures. This
> simple diagram shows how the "fingerprint" predicted by AGW models fails to
> conform to observed atmospheric conditions; click to enlarge:
>

From Christy's and Spencer's web site (
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/)

"During global warming, the atmosphere near the surface is supposed to warm
> at least as fast as the surface warms, while the upper layers are supposed
> to cool much faster than the surface warms."
>

That's a good way test for global warming, so I'll stipulate what Christy
said. Christy's data is suspect, though. This statement betrays a cognitive
dissonance. If the "prediction" that is supposedly *ONLY* made through
computer models says the upper atmosphere should be cooling at a much faster
rate. Yet, how come none of the trends in Christy's graph for the models
ever changes sign?!!!? Unless:

1. The evidence for anthropogenic climate change is more than in just the
computer models
2. Christy is fudging the data.

Actually it's both.

Because of the discrepancies being discussed here, in the early part of this
Century Congress commissioned the Climate Science program. Their conclusion:

"Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the
> surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the
> reliability of climate models and the reality of human-induced global
> warming. Specifically, surface data showed substantial global-average
> warming, while early versions of satellite and radiosonde data showed
> little or no warming above the surface. This significant discrepancy no
> longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been
> identified and corrected. New data sets have also been developed that do
> not show such discrepancies." [Note: Christy still has not corrected his
> data error (always be skeptical of uncorrected data coming out of UAH) .
> Basically the satellites "smear" the temperature data so the cooler
> stratosphere gets attributed to the warmer troposphere causing the
> troposphere temperatures to be understated. Radiosonde records have the same
> issue. Net net, the best quality temperature records are the RSS ones.]
>

The UK's Hadley center has a far better graph here:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Monthly/upper_air_temps.gif

To match the first part of the test the lower troposphere's temperature
needs to be greater than 0.13 degrees C/decade. RSS has a +0.2 degrees
C/decade. Just to be careful, I went to the NCDC for the freshest data
(January-April 2008). It had the LT trend as +0.15 (UAH) and +0.18 (RSS)
degrees C/decade. Hmm. I thought warming stopped in January.

As for the second part of the test, Christy plays games because he cuts off
the graph before we reach the lower stratosphere. Fortunately, the Hadley
Center does not.

Every data point is less than -0.2 degrees C/decade. NCDC does not have
trends for the LS but notes that April 2008 was the second coolest April for
stratosphere in the historic record. So, based on Christy's own criteria,
we have anthropogenic global warming.

Speaking of NCDC here's part of their analysis for April.

"As depicted in the time series to the right, Eurasia's snow cover extent
> during April 2008 was below average. This was the least snow cover extent
> over the 41-year historical period for April, surpassing the previous least
> snow cover extent set in 1990. Much of this can be attributed to the above
> normal temperatures that covered most of the Asian continent. On average,
> the Eurasian snow cover extent in April was 17.9 million square kilometers
> for the 1967-2008 period of record."
>

Here's what they said for January putting the snow melt in context. Think
about it record high snow cover in January and record low snow cover in
April. The "little ice age of January 2008" was very, very short.

"As depicted in the time series to the right, Eurasia's snow cover extent in
> January was much above average and was the largest extent over the 42-year
> historical period. During January, severe winter weather brought freezing
> temperatures and heavy snow across much of China and central Asia. In some
> areas, snow fell for the first time in living memory. On average, Eurasian
> January snow cover extent is 29.4 million square kilometers for the
> 1967-2008 period of record."
>

Rich Blinne
Member ASA

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Received on Thu, 29 May 2008 08:47:09 -0600