Dip into the Climate…for a Change

Climate change…so what’s the story? It has been described by some as the greatest threat facing society today. There is much talk about “following the science” yet we hear very little directly from those scientists. Very few outside the scientific community truly understand the complexity of the issue. This website is based around capturing and sharing this amazing world around us. This issue affects this world so I wanted to learn more about it. I had a few weeks to spare, so I dove in.

The goal of this post was not to spark meaningless political debate but rather leverage my science background to understand climate science and the factors involved. I figured other family and friends might be interested in what I learned and save them hours of difficult research. My goal is to present it in as understandable and simple terms that I could find…with lots of pictures. I treated this like a college science project leveraging the research scientists have already done to tell a story more can understand. If this helps focus discussions on the real issues, great!

Climate is Local

Climate is local. We often here the phrase, “I really like the weather in _______________.” While the weather on any given day (short-term) can be good or bad, what is generally being referred to is the climate (long-term weather trends). Some people really enjoy a climate with strong seasonal variations associated with larger seasonal temperature changes, others prefer more moderate climates. We often see climate discussion oversimplified to center around average global temperatures, but the climate in the world we live in includes relative humidity (“it’s a dry heat”), amounts of seasonal precipitation, and weather volatility (strong seasonal storms). Local climates are not going to change simply based on an overall global average change of a couple degrees.

Depending on the geography, climate can change significantly in a very short distance. If you live along the beach in Redondo Beach (Los Angeles), you would see average temperatures range from a low of 44°F in the winter to a high of 73°F in the summer with around 15″ of rain per year. Yet, if you jump over the San Gabriel mountains and into the desert near Palmdale, the average temperature range changes to lows in the 20s°F and highs of 97°F with around 5″ of rain per year…a completely different climate in just 60 miles. Hoh Rainforest in Olympic NP, WA gets over 130″ of rain per year, yet Sequim, WA (55 miles to the northeast) gets less than 16″ of rain per year. Location on the continent impacts climate. It’s not a coincidence that Vancouver Island and the British Isles, both on the west coast at around 50°N latitude, share similar climates and have nothing in common with northern Montana at a similar latitude well off the coastline. Again, climate is local.

The Science – Natural Variations vs. Anthropogenic Forcing

Climate science is not a stand-alone field but rather an intersection of atmospheric, earth and space sciences. This includes, at a minimum: climatology, meteorology, geology, oceanography, paleontology, chemistry, physics, biology, botany and the underlying mathematics associated with all of the above. It’s clear that nothing on this planet happens “in a vacuum,” it’s all interrelated.  The heart of the current climate debate is how much of our climate is impacted by natural variations compared to anthropogenic (human-induced) factors and whether we can accurately predict what Mother Nature will do 10, 50 or 100 years. 

Article Roadmap – How the Article is Organized

1). Climate is discussed from an historical perspective based on geologic data and other “paleoclimate” data looking back 500+ million years. Then zoom in to the last 5 million years where we have a better understanding of the ice ages and zoom again to the last 11,000 years representing the time since the last major glacial period. This gives a broad overview of the natural cycles that have existed and a possible explanation for a major climatic cycle that is evident in that history. It also puts into perspective geologic time to help explain how little data we are working with in the modern era.

2). An overview of basic climate science to understand how energy flows in and out of our atmosphere and the factors, including greenhouse gases that impact this process.

3). The natural processes that affect our planet. These natural processes ultimately translate into variables that need to be accurately modeled to predict our weather and climate. These variables include clouds, oceans, solar cycles, plate tectonics, and the role carbon dioxide plays in nature.

4). How human-induced (anthropogenic) factors play into the overall climate discussion including carbon dioxide and the affects of urbanization.

5). Understanding the data we see and how it impacts our perception of climate change.

6). Challenges with modeling climate.

7). “The Threat.” What issues are commonly brought up surrounding climate change and their significance. This includes global temperatures, carbon dioxide levels, sea level changes, glaciers and polar ice levels.

8). Putting it all into perspective.

Climate- A Historical Perspective

The Phanerozoic Eon is the geologic term for the last 542 million years. It’s clear from the Figure 1 that the climate has experienced many natural variations during this period, and this is only the last 542 million years of a 4.6 billion year earth history. All of the changes we see above are natural variations without any human inputs. Life emerged and thrived in the wide range of climatic conditions which were far greater than we will ever see in our lifetime.

Time scales in geologic charts can be misleading, which complicates the discussion. The amount of time is so large, they have to get creative in how to represent changes over time. Note how the time scale changes in each column in Figure 1 above. The left column is divided into 50-million-year increments. The next column to the right is 10-million-year increments. Those two columns span 535 million years (542 to 7 million years ago). The last 7 million years (starting in the Pliocene) is represented in the 5 columns on the right, each column expands the scale. The most recent “Ice Ages” (Pleistocene) started 2.58 million years ago and the time since the last major glacial episode (Holocene) represents the last 11,000 years. If the scale for Holocene Epoch were not expanded, the last 11,000 years would be squeezed into the thin line dividing the Pleistocene and the Holocene. Unexpanded, the last 150 years, including all human-induced inputs, would be a dot so small, it would not be visible. We are just a blink of the eye in the big scheme of things. The next section may help explain this better.

Human Time versus Geologic Time

An earlier blog, A Walk Across Time, illustrates how the things we see in our world fit into “the big picture”. Figure 2 below from that post, walking from the beach in Los Angeles to the eastern reaches of Long Island NY, represents the age of the earth with each year being one millimeter along the walk. It isn’t until well into Pennsylvania where you begin Phanerozoic Eon shown in Figure 1 above (gray bar in the Figure 2 below). The last 7 million years in the right half of Figure 1 would be the last 4 miles of the 2,858-mile journey shown below. The 150 years in the far right column of the Figure 1 would fit into the last 6 inches (half a footprint) of this very long hike across the country. Our world has been spinning and the climate has been changing for a long, long time.

Natural Climate Variations in the Last Few Million Years

Figure 3 zooms in on the natural climate changes over the last 5.5 million years. This graph is based on ice core data from places like Greenland and the Antarctic combined with data from ocean floor sediments. First thing to note is that the temperature (blue line) naturally fluctuates (cycles), with an overall cooling trend for the last 5.5 million years (red line). From the temperature chart in Figure 1, this overall cooling trend has been ongoing starting around 15 million years ago. The Pleistocene Epoch (Ice Ages) is shaded in light blue. The next thing to note in Figure 3 is that as you go to the right starting around 1.2 million years ago, the amount of temperature change started increasing and the last few cycles show fairly large changes. The reference line at 14.5°C is equal to 58°F. Figure 3 represents only natural variations. Any potential human-induced changes are still too small to be shown on this scale.

Natural Climate Cycles – Milankovitch Cycles

Milankovitch Cycles are based on the theory that climate is affected by earth’s orbit moving closer to and further from the sun based on gravitational pull when planets align. Figure 4 expands the last 400,000 years (which is the right 400 kya in the Figure 3, above). This graph illustrates the cyclical temperature trends associated with the Milankovitch Cycle theory. This cycle appears to repeat on approximately 100,000-year intervals. This theory also includes periodic changes to the earth’s tilt. Obviously, it’s impossible to verify if these temperature cycles will continue in the future since we won’t be around for the next 100,000 years but the behavior in the past can be validated. The trend can’t be simply dismissed, nor the significance of how much natural change occurs in each cycle. This NASA site does a great job (with animation) explaining the Milankovitch Cycles. Note the little red box in Figure 4 (on the right) represents the last 11,000 years. Many scientists believe the ice ages haven’t really ended but rather we are just in an interglacial warming period between major cyclical glacial events. It’s hard to argue that the natural cycles which have dominated Earth’s climate for the past 450K+ years, resulting in global cooling on the order of 8 degrees C, are suddenly (geologically speaking) irrelevant.

In Figure 5, we zoom in again to look at what has happened in the last 11,000 years since the last major glaciation ended. This time period is referred to as the Holocene Epoch. Natural cycling continues to occur, just on a smaller scale and for the first time we begin to see time on a scale that includes a hint of human activity. The period between 8,000 and 7,000 years ago is often referred to as the “climatic optimum” (green circle). The far-right green bar (Modern Warm Period) is the last 150 years associated with industrial revolution. This warming period followed a naturally occurring mini ice age (“Little Ice Age”). Prior to the Modern Warm Period, Mother Nature was still the only factor impacting the changes.

Up until the late 1980’s, climate models showed our modern warming as just another warmer cycling in an overall cooling trend, as shown in the Figure 6, below. The warm periods in Figure 6 correspond to the green bars in Figure 5, above. The popular media told a different story then than they do today.

In the 1970’s, there were concerns of an impending Ice Age. (global cooling 1970s – Bing images and TIME Magazine — U.S. Edition — December 3, 1973 Vol. 102 No. 23:

Climate Science Basics – Energy In/Energy Out

The geologic historical record tells us about the past. The discussion we largely hear today focuses on what is going on in the atmosphere today, and in recent past. The basic premise is solar energy heats the earth in the form of Ultraviolet (UV), visible “sunlight” and likely some Infrared (IR) radiation. The energy is turned into heat. Energy escapes the earth in the form of IR radiation. The specific wavelengths of the energy is meaningless to most of us but I find it interesting to see the electromagnetic chart (Figure 7) to understand what they mean when they are talking about energy. As the wavelength increases going left to right, the relative energy decreases and vice versa. It’s interesting, as well, to see where things like X-rays and TV/radio fit into the spectrum. Microwaves have similar wavelengths as radar. The yellow (incoming energy) and red arrows (outgoing energy) on the chart below correspond to the arrows in the “Global Warming 101” (Figure 8) below.

When the amount of solar energy coming in (yellow arrows) equals the amount of IR radiation letting energy out (red and orange arrows) the planet is in balance and the global average temperature doesn’t change. It’s well understood that the concept of being “in balance” is theoretical only. The system is always changing and has always been changing and will always change from periods of warming to cooling and vice versa.

The energy transfer shown in Figure 8 is overly simplified to visualize the concept. In reality this energy transfer is like living in a house with doors and windows that open and close naturally, controlling how energy gets in and out. While we think of this as a global concept, the global is merely the sum of all the local energy transactions. For the earth, “greenhouse gases” act as those doors and windows and they include: water vapor, clouds, carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) as well as a couple other gasses including ozone. Water vapor including clouds, by far, make up the largest percentage of greenhouse gases.

A friend, with expertise in atmospheric sciences gave me the analogy that these gases act like goalies protecting a soccer goal. The more goalies you have, the harder it is to get the ball past them into the net. There is debate within the scientific community whether you hit a point of CO2 saturation and adding more “goalies” doesn’t change how the atmosphere reacts. Without clouds, the doors (and goal) are wide open and most of the heat coming in gets absorbed and most of the IR radiation letting heat out gets out, the net is wide open. On a clear night, it can get really cold outside because the windows are wide open. Figure 9 shows how the major greenhouse gas components contribute to the overall “door and window” effect in energy exchange. The red indicates incoming solar energy, the blue indicates outgoing IR radiation. The “Percent” section in the middle of Figure 9 are the sum of all the “Major Components” at the bottom. Note the significant impact of water vapor (including clouds) makes as compared to the other greenhouse gasses. This reiterates why water vapor and clouds are so important to the discussion.

Figure 10 explains the basic concept in more detail. Solar energy (yellow arrows) enters the atmosphere. Some energy gets absorbed directly into the atmosphere, some energy gets reflected back into space, and some energy makes it to the surface and get absorbed. Energy leaves the surface (orange arrows). Some departing energy escapes into space and some energy gets reflected back to the surface. If total energy in exceeds total energy out, the system warms. In the example shown in Figure 10, 340 watts/square meter came from the sun but 100 watts/square meter got reflected back out so “Energy In” = 240 watts/square meter. The orange arrow shows 239 watt/square meter exiting the atmosphere (Energy Out) so the overall change in this image would be a 1 watt/square meter overall energy increase. Figure 10 shows the role clouds play in the Energy In/Energy Out concept in an simplified way. The real-life dynamic and chaotic nature of the earth is where the math problem gets very complicated.

Natural Climate Variables – Clouds

Water vapor and clouds are the major component of greenhouse gasses but how they act in this process is complicated, very complicated. There are many types of clouds and they all behave differently in how they absorb, transmit, and reflect energy…what energy they let in and what they kick back. Density of clouds, the thickness of cloud layers, the amount of cloud coverage and cloud height above the ground, among many other things all affect this process. Scientists must also be able to account for all the clouds around the globe not only now but well into the future if they want to predict what the climate will do in the future. While current measurements can be taken, they are far from capturing all the intricate details needed to accurately predict what weather will do in the next couple of days, let alone the distant future. The complexity of accurately modeling the behavior of the wide variety of clouds shown in the picture below is evident. Take that complexity and add that this is one small location at one point in time. These clouds will change dramatically in the next hour from when the image was captured. It has been stated that there is not enough computer power on the planet to accurately model clouds. I believe that is an understatement! Dr. Judith Curry – Former Chair of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech (video interview) explains.

Natural Climate Variations – Oceans…and they matter!

Over 90% of the earth’s thermal energy is contained in the ocean. Anyone living near the coast understands how the ocean affects their climate. Ocean temperatures also affect larger weather patterns which affect temperatures, clouds and precipitation on a great scale across continents. Ocean temperatures fluctuate in cycles that cover decades or multiple decades. These fluctuations, called “oscillations,” include “Pacific Decadal Oscillations (PDO)” shown in Figure 11 and “Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillations (AMO)” in Figure 12, below. There are many more.

Other patterns like “El Nino and La Nina Southern Oscillations” (ENSO) in Figure 13, originating in the tropical Pacific region, cycle on shorter timelines. These oscillations have been going on long before humans entered the picture. Generally, El Nino is a warming phenomenon, La Nina is cooling. Temperature/precipitation patterns change with these cycles as shown in Figure 13a. El Nino Southern Oscillations (ENSO) seems to be a product of the trade winds (equatorial easterlies).  When the trade winds are strong, the equatorial Pacific surface waters are pushed west prompting up-welling of cooler water along South America and along the equator—La Niña conditions.  Weak trade winds mean warm water accumulates in the equatorial Pacific = El Niño. The precise contributions are impossible to calculate, but significant enough to understand that there are many natural events at play.

Does ENSO play a role in climate? Of course it does, to some degree. It certainly affects many local climates. It’s interesting to note the strong El Nino events in 1997-98 and 2015-16 (Figure 13b) corresponded with the spikes in the Global Lower Atmosphere temperatures in Figure 14. Just another complicated piece of the puzzle.

Natural Climate Variations – Solar Cycles

It’s uncertain how solar cycles affect the overall climate. Figures 15 indicates solar cycles follow an 11-year pattern which is not controversial. The impact of those cycles on solar energy is being debated. Some scientific circles suggest solar cycles play a very small role in the overall climate change discussion. There are theories that indicate a larger pattern of Grand Solar cycles that repeat on 350-400 year cycles. Dr. Valentina Zharkova has modeled sunspot behavior and discusses the significance of sunspot patterns (Figure 16). These patterns would indicate we are starting the next Grand Solar Minimum in 2020 and things will get colder for the next 30 years or so. While some theories regarding solar cycles are generally agreed upon, Dr. Zharkova’s theories regarding the role they play in climate change are not universally agreed upon. Time will tell if any of the predictions of cooling in the next 30 years come are tied to solar activity or if this theory falls by the wayside.

Another study links solar cycles to La Nina/El Nino weather patterns. New study ties solar variability to the onset of decadal La Nina events – Watts Up With That? I am not the position to support for any given theory but rather to impress that the science is not “settled.” There are many unknown variables and this is another factor to pile on the complexities in predicting the climate future. Noticing the trend here? 🙂

Natural Climate Variables – Plate Tectonics

We live on large crustal plates (Figure 17) that slowly move around the surface of the earth. The plate boundaries are sometimes spreading apart, like in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes they collide with each other (subduction zones) like happened on our Pacific Coast forming most of the mountains in the Western U.S. This subduction is currently happening in the north and east Pacific Rim as well as along the west coast of South America. In any case, these boundaries are often a source of heat and volcanics are common. A Volcanic Trigger for Earth’s First Mass Extinction? – Eos. The overall impact of plate tectonics including the associated volcanics is hard to calculate but it certainly can’t be discounted…and as we know about nature, it’s largely unpredictable. Yellowstone sits on a large magma pool that has erupted 2.2 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago, and 630,000 years ago. When will it erupt again? No one really knows…but if it erupts, it will have a major impact!!

Carbon Dioxide – Where does it fit into the discussion?

The climate discussion often references “carbon footprint” or more specifically focusing on man-made sources of carbon released in the atmosphere (cars, factories, etc.). Approximately 40 of every 100,000 molecules in the atmosphere are CO2 (400 parts per million or ‘ppm’)…its a very small amount. Dr. Roy Spencer in his Global Warming 101 discussion points out, “…the amount of warming directly caused by us adding extra CO2 to the atmosphere is, by itself, relatively weak. It has been calculated theoretically that, if there are no other changes in the climate system, a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration would cause about 1 deg C of surface warming. This is NOT a controversial statement…it is well understood by climate scientists.”

As we would expect, Dr. Spencer goes on to say, “But everything else in the climate system probably won’t stay the same. For instance, clouds, water vapor, and precipitation systems can all be expected to respond to the warming tendency in some way, which could either amplify or reduce the manmade warming…” The climate system is extraordinarily complex. There is no real way to prove any theories particularly given that trends take years to develop. Additionally, there is no way to determine what outcome would happen if a variable like humans were not in the environment.

As a side note, doubling the CO2 levels from 410 to 820 at the current rate would take around 235 years. Doubling it then again from 820 to 1640 would take an additional 470 years for a total of over 700 years to raise the temperature 2°C IF, and I repeat IF the earth responded like a laboratory-controlled experiment. History has shown us that trends reverse directions without any explanation.

Natural Climate Variability – Carbon Dioxide

Life was made possible on the planet because simple celled phytoplankton converted CO2 to oxygen. Without those early high levels of CO2 during the Precambrian, we may not have had life at all. This evidence can been seen in fossils of stromatolites found in the ancient rocks exposed in Glacier National Park [link]. Carbon dioxide has moved in and out of the atmosphere through nature as long as there has been life on the planet. Plants, oceans, and soil breath CO2 naturally. Enormous amounts of carbon are stored in the earth’s crust, oceans, soils and plants compared to the relatively small amount in the atmosphere. Figure 18 gives an idea of where carbon is stored and how it naturally moves around between organic matter, earth’s crust, oceans, and atmosphere. It’s easy to see how complex a problem it would be to accurately measure how carbon moves around by source, each and every day for the entire planet.

The fact that climate and CO2 levels have continually changed throughout earth’s 4.6 billion year history isn’t being debated. What caused those changes is not fully understood. Figure 19 is a simplified historical representation of what natural temperature and CO2 variations across earth’s history. It’s clear there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature changes that stood the test of time.

Here is a link to a history of Carbon Dioxide through Geologic Time. Great article in a very condensed, easy to read manner. In addition to talking about CO2 over time, the article also talks about the inherent complexities and challenges scientists face when studying CO2 in nature.

Anthropogenic Climate Change – The Industrial Age

Anthropogenic (human-induced) change has taken the spotlight in the climate change discussion. Recent times (mid 1800s to present) represent the onset of the Industrial Age and expansion of energy derived from fossil fuels. The theory that rising CO2 levels have significantly impacted global temperatures has given rise to terms like “carbon neutral” and “carbon footprint”. A lesser, but equally important, part of the discussion is the impacts of development called the “Urban Heat Island”.

The Industrial Age – Temperature Trends

Temperature data during this time started with land-based temperature records becoming more sophisticated over time to include satellite data starting in 1979. Data prior to the early 1900s was not as reliable as we see today and had a significant “margin of error.” Figure 20 show the global average temperatures since 1850 indicating “noisy” annual variations with general up and down trends. The cooling trend between around 1880 and 1910 transitioned to a warming trend until around 1940. The 1940s through 1970s reverted to a cooling trend until the early 1980s then followed by a warming trend again until the late 1990s. The warming trend generally leveled off again until 2016 where we show a couple of short warming spikes that bounced back within a couple years. On the larger picture, prior to 1900, the earth was rebounding from the “Little Ice Age” so the warming we see in the 1900s isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Here is an article that references warming Climate Change: There Is No Emergency | National Review

The Industrial Age – Carbon Dioxide

The atmospheric graph (Figure 21) tells a different story than temperature trends. Pre-industrial levels remained fairly steady with only a slight upward trend from 280 ppm to 300 ppm until the early 1900s. The trend increased slightly into the 1960s when the rate increased from around 320 ppm to its current level of around 410 ppm. Unlike temperature trends in the 1900s, CO2 does not show any decreasing trends and the general level-off trend shown since 1998 is not reflected in the rising CO2 curve.

The Industrial Age – Urban Heat Island

Early temperature monitoring wasn’t done necessarily with the intent on modeling long term climate trends.  Weather stations were put where they were needed them at the time, often several grouped in bigger cities. Over time, cities grew.  As they grew, roads, buildings, sidewalks, etc. started popping up which impacted how heat is reflected and absorbed. We all understand that walking on the asphalt in the middle of a hot summer day will burn your feet. Asphalt absorbs and releases heat different that sidewalks, grass and dirt. Glass reflects energy differently that trees. Even different roofing materials change how energy is absorbed and released. The term used to describe this phenomenon of city growth impacting temperature data is “Urban Heat Island (UHI).” While the UHI phenomenon is well known, how to calculate the impact on climate is a different story.

Data Homogenization

Scientists have made attempts to model and compensate for the UHI effect by adjusting the raw temperature data calling that adjustment “data homogenization.” In the photography world, this would be considered “photoshop.” First problem is that changing the raw data introduces error. The adjustments made have been controversial because it masked the overall cooling period between 1940 and 1980 giving the impression that greater correlation existed between CO2 and temperature rise in the last 100 years. The the original raw data (Figure 22a) shows cooling trends not consistent with the CO2 rise. The graphs in Figure 22b show the impact of data homogenization and Figure 22c the changes made to the raw data.

Masking the cooling period between 1940 and 1980 not only gives the appearance that CO2 is a stronger driver in climate changes, it also leads to forecasts looking like the chart in Figure 23 where we are on a runaway CO2-driven temperature train. This forecast also ignores all the other natural factors affecting climate described above.

The Data: Understanding What We See

“Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a grease pencil, and cut with an axe”

Imagine a carpenter preparing to cut a large piece of wood. The measurement was made to the finest precision, a fraction of a hair width. Then the carpenter pulls out a grease pencil to mark the cut line. Finally, the carpenter reaches over and grabs the axe to make the cut. This is one of the key challenges scientists face. They have equipment that can make very fine temperature measurements and computers that can do extensive calculations. This gives us the illusion that things are being done with extreme precision (the micrometer). The many complexities in the system including modeling clouds, the uncertain CO2 sensitivity, and CO2 in nature described above represents the grease pencil. Finally, mother nature is the axe and does what she darn well pleases and our forecasting capabilities represent that reality. This concept may appear to be unrelated to climate, but it explains why things are complicated. The computer age gives us the impression that we can magically calculate (with extreme precision) all of Earth’s natural (cut with an axe) processes…we simply cannot.

The Data: Graphs and Perspective

Graphs can do a great job telling a visual story. Interpreting graphs, however, can be a bit of a trick. The graph below, (Figure 24) is not contentious. But, because climate scientists are dealing with such small changes in average temperatures, they expand the Y-Axis to +/- 1°C to be able see the small variations of tenths of a degree. If that scale was changed to 0-120°F (real world temperatures), this graph would be a straight horizontal line at around 58° +/- 1°F. The total temperature rise since 1979 seen here would fit within the width of the line and most of us wouldn’t give it a thought. This is not to be critical of how the graph is constructed, it’s done this way for a good reason. This is just to point out that our impression of the data presented may be swayed by the scale and it is important to keep that in mind.

The Data: Averaging and Smoothing

Data averaging and smoothing is essentially globalizing local climates. Each of the 3,000+ stations records and averages the temperature seasonally (or annually). They then compare the average for the current season to the 30-year average for the season at that station with the difference (warmer or cooler) recorded as the anomaly:

Figure 25, Chart 1. Each little circle is a station. The “black blob” is thousands of circles all stacked on top of each other. Most stations are +/- 5°C of their 30-year average, a few stations had years where they were 10°C warmer or cooler than average. Remember, climate is local. The circles on Chart 1 in 2012 show that one station was 8°C (15°F) warmer and another was 8°C colder than average for the season during the same year. As weather works, the warmer station could be the colder station the following year. Annual fluctuations are generally far more significant than long-term trends.

Figure 25, Chart 2. The “black blob” is complicated (noisy) so reduce the noise, all the stations are then averaged for the season and plotted as yellow squares. The yellow squares now start to mask the fact that most local climates vary +/- 5°C year to year normally (some more than that) and introduces the concept of a single global climate average that varies very little with a slight warming trend of 1°C over the last century.

Figure 25, Chart 3. The black dots are then removed to clean up the graph. The notion of local climates has been removed. Additionally, the vertical scale is expanded from +/- 12°C down to +/- 1°C (purple ovals). This change in scale is significant in changing the overall story. The 1°C temperature rise over the last century, barely detectable in Chart 2 makes it appear the temperature is going through the roof in Chart 3 and 4.

Figure 25 Chart 4. To further clean up the “noise”, they do running averages to “smooth” out the graph. While this technique makes the graph simple to read, it totally masks the complexity of our climatic system.

The important take away from Figure 25 is that climate is local and we all live somewhere in the black blob. Sometimes we are above the yellow line and sometimes we are below the yellow line. Any one location that happens to fall on the yellow line in a given season is just passing through. These charts were put together based on the work of Dr. Richard Lindzen and Dr. John Christy. They do a good job of explaining data complexity in the video link.

Understanding what we read – It may not be what it seems

This NASA article just popped up on my radar titled, “Direct Observations Confirm Humans Affect Earth’s Energy Budget | NASA“. This article was written by a member of the NASA Earth Science News Team. The title makes a very strong statement then followed up with the opening line to the article, “Earth is on a budget – an energy budget. Our planet is constantly trying to balance the flow of energy in and out of Earth’s system. But human activities are throwing that off balance, causing our planet to warm in response.” If I read only the title and the first sentence, knew nothing of the science involved, and believed NASA was completely objective and apolitical I would be likely to say there is your proof, the science is settled. But, I read the whole article (and the underlying paper), have a reasonable understanding of the science and know NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies was led by a self-proclaimed climate activist Jim Hansen from 1981-2013. Regardless of Mr. Hansen’s association with NASA, I read the article to understand the science presented. Here was my assessment:

1). Most of the article was a basic explanation of Global Warming 101 as discussed earlier just inserting “human-caused” without any real explanation.

2). While not explicitly stating it, the article gives the impression that the earth’s energy would be in balance if not for humans which it claims are throwing it out of balance. History shows it has never been in balance, it’s always in some state of warming or cooling.

3). The article discusses using satellite technology to measure incoming and outgoing radiation. It gives the impression (combined with the cool images of the earth) that those measurements are extremely accurate but it didn’t mention how accurate those measurements are. Dr. Roy Spencer offers clarity of the realistic accuracy in Global Warming 101. Dr. Spencer also states, “averaged over the whole planet for 1 year, the energy flows in and out of the climate system are estimated to be around 235 to 240 watts per square meter. We don’t really know for sure because our global observations from spaceborne satellite instruments are not accurate enough to measure those flows of radiant energy.”

4). I give the article credit in stating, “But it doesn’t tell us what factors are causing changes in the energy balance,” said Kramer when referencing that the energy in/energy out measurements cannot determine what causes the changes.

5). The paragraph concerning measuring water vapor completely sidesteps the complexity of clouds and giving the impression that water vapor’s impact on energy transfer is a simple calculation, it’s not. This paragraph also gives the impression that the instruments that measure radiative energy or water vapor can distinguish the source of individual greenhouse gas components or their relative impact on energy transfer. Carbon Dioxide is transferred to and from the atmosphere naturally (in significant amounts). While I trust they can measure, to some level of accuracy, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, I have seen no evidence they can accurately measure the source. The inverse of “measure it with a micrometer…cut it with an axe” is looking at a tree that was cut down with an axe and trying to determine where the lumberjack drew the line with his pencil labeled, “cut here.”

6). The following paragraph introduced the only quantitative input from the source article, “The team found that human activities have caused the radiative forcing on Earth to increase by about 0.5 Watts per square meter from 2003 to 2018.” To the average reader, that number is meaningless. But, it does give the impression that this both accurate (to the tenth of a Watt/square meter) and significant. When I read the article, my first thought was that 0.5 Watts in and overall energy budget of around 240 Watts/square meter would mean that the human impact would be around 0.2%. Graphed, that would look like Figure 26. Is my interpretation of this correct? I don’t know. But what I do know that the relative impact of natural variations versus human-induced forcing is the basis for the underlying debate. If NASA is to make the claim that humans are throwing the climate out of balance they owe us a better explanation than what they offered. Technically, this graph does indicate that humans do play a part, it’s just not much.

7). The last paragraph, “Creating a direct record of radiative forcing calculated from observations will allow us to evaluate how well climate models can simulate these forcings,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York City. “This will allow us to make more confident projections about how the climate will change in the future.” As students in a structural geology class during the 1980s in Southern California, we observed significant media coverage of the potential dangers of earthquakes. Someone in the class asked the professor why the media hype because there weren’t any predictions of an impending major earthquake? Without missing a beat, he responded, “funding time”…makes perfect sense.

Modeling Climate

It is generally agreed the difference between weather and climate is the amount time involved. Weather is the conditions in the atmosphere over a short period of time, and climate describes the conditions on a longer term basis. More specifically, climate is the long-term averages of everyday weather. So, to predict climate accurately, one would assume we should be able to predict the short-term weather accurately. We live in a digital world with high-tech computer systems so it seems logical that we should be able to do this accurately. It’s not that simple.

How well do we forecast weather?

Given the complexities, meteorologists forecast weather amazingly well! To illustrate how hard forecasting is, here are the predictions from Hurricane Katrina a few years back. Click image for a larger view.

Some of the models had a reasonable idea of what the storm would do reaching the Gulf of Mexico. The orange line appears to be fairly solid until approaching the coast. Having said that, the orange and red forecasts still missed the landfall location by 70 miles, when modeled a few days out. If you were playing darts, the green and yellow tracks would have missed the entire dart board by 3 feet.

The task of modeling and predicting climate is the intersection of many highly complex calculus problems with unpredictable variables to an accuracy of a tenth of a degree. All the natural variables that have impacted climate for billions of years have to be accurately modeled as well as modeling weather in the future for models to be worthwhile. Trying to make assumptions about how all those variables react to the world around them introduce modeling errors and logically explains why models have, and continue to be a challenge to build, as seen in the modeling simulations shown below. One common trend from the chart below is the “models are running hot.” Had there been an equal number of forecasts “running cold,” we would have a significant amount of models forecasting global cooling in the future…something to ponder.

An analogy that we all understand is trying to predict the future value of an investment over a 50-period based on a constant growth rate. It’s not reality to assume the investments growth rate will be constant, or even continue to grow. These scientists are doing great work given what they are working with. Forecasting weather is not easy and that is only dealing with atmospheric variabilities in the next few days. In my humble opinion, forecasting climate would make forecasting global financial markets seem like child’s play.

The Threat – Global Warming?

Clearly, a 1°C (2°F) global temperature change over a century is not a cause for alarm. Locally, if your annual temperature in Redondo Beach varied from 44°F to 73°F, this change rate would make it be 46°F to 75°F in 100 years. This does not constitute an existential threat. The total average global temperature change in the last 100 years is less than the temperature change we experience between 8:00 and 10:00 in the morning every day. The Global Mean Temperature Anomaly Record – YouTube does a great job of explaining this reality.

The Threat – Is the earth on fire?

Popular media would lead us to believe the earth is doomed to spontaneously combust if we don’t act soon. Unlike the video below, the earth is not in any danger of catching fire. Bill Nye needs to go back to doing comedy…this isn’t science.

Impact – Is increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere a good thing or a bad thing?

The discussion of CO2 often centers around it being an undesirable byproduct of factories, cars and other industrial revolution developments. However, what we don’t hear much about is the role CO2 plays in nature. Carbon is fundamental to life and its widely distributed through CO2. Without CO2 in the air, plants cannot survive, that is what they “breathe”. Everything “green” in our world is constantly absorbing and releasing CO2. Ocean life depends on carbon. The oceans are constantly absorbing and releasing CO2. If all the CO2 were removed from the atmosphere, life would cease to exist. Dr. Patrick Moore presents the complex role carbon plays in life and how CO2 constantly moves around as shown in Figure 18.

It has also been pointed out that increasing CO2 can be a benefit to plant growth. Restricting CO2 will inhibit growth. The chart in Figure 27a shows that relationship (link to source). Greenhouses often supplement the ambient air with CO2 to achieve 1,000 ppm to promote plant growth. When CO2 gets below 200 ppm, plant growth is severely restricted, ice core data has shown CO2 levels as low as 180 ppm and studies show that below 150 ppm, plants start dying off. Since the 1950s, CO2 has increased from its pre-industrial levels of around 280 ppm to around 400 ppm. At the rate of increase seen since the 1950s, it would take more than two centuries to double from 400 to 800 ppm. This could be a great thing for nature and humanity (Figure 27b).

Impact – Sea Levels Rising

According to the last Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), “Over the period 1901 to 2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21] m” WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf (ipcc.ch). The sea level rise in the last 120 years is 7-8 inches…total.

Sea level rise is often cited as one of the “existential threats” of climate change, largely tied to melting ice in the polar regions. During the last Glacial Maximum, the sea level was several hundred feet below it’s current level. That is significant. What was also significant was the amount of land in North America (and the rest of the world) that was covered by ice during that time (Figure 28a). If you lived where Boston or Chicago currently is, you would have been under several thousand feet of ice 20,000 years ago. As the ice melted in the early Holocene (approximately 11,000 years ago), the sea levels rose until stabilizing around 7,000 years ago when the massive continental glacial ice sheets had retreated (Figure 28b).

Glaciers in the western U.S. mountains were completely gone by 7,000 years ago. They have come and gone throughout history. The glaciers we see in places like Glacier National Park today returned during the intermittent cooling periods starting 5,000-7,000 years ago (Figure 29) and have advanced and retreated since that time (independent of human activity).

Compare Yellowstone during the recent major ice ages, and Yellowstone now. The warming and cooling cycles are significant but the changes also take thousands of years to develop.

Impact – Polar Ice Sheets: Aren’t they melting?

What is going on with the polar ice sheets? Here is the current data (March 2021) for the polar ice. The mean annual temperature of the Antarctic interior is −57 °C (−70.6 °F). The coast is warmer (if you call that warm); on the coast Antarctic with average temperatures around −10 °C (14.0 °F) (in the warmest parts of Antarctica). In the elevated inland they average about −55 °C (−67.0 °F) in Vostok. The data below shows there is no indication the Polar Ice Caps are going anywhere soon. Here is a link to the ice reports below:

Impact – What if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses?

There is concern the West Antarctic Ice sheet is in danger of collapsing which could raise sea levels. The stability of the ice in that area was declared geologically unstable over 50 years ago. The ice sheet sits on a “shelf”. As gravity normally moves the ice sheet down hill, towards the ocean, portions of the glacier will break off when they are no longer supported by land below them. This is the normal for glaciers, they are breaking off due to their own weight. This ice sheet was determined to be “unstable” by geologists decades ago. The “Unstable” West Antarctic Ice Sheet: A Primer | NASA. Might climate have some small part to play with it? How much impact the volcanic areas below plays is also part of the equation. In reality, who knows? But, it is far more likely driven by nature than anything we can control and likely not anything we will see in our lifetime. The point is that many of the “climate threats” are not related to global climate nor are anything humans cause or can control.

Putting it all into Perspective

This the earth on a runaway heat explosion? The data shows, during this warming period we have been in, the average global temperature has risen approximately 1°C (2°F). That means the average global temperature went from 57°F to 59°F in the last 120 years. That would be like walking over to the thermostat in your living room and bumping it up 1°F and your request to warm it up would take 60 years for your house heating system to make the change…we would likely call the repair man. We live normally with 30-40 degree temperature fluctuations on any given day. The earth is not on fire.

The three weather screenshots below were captured on Feb 14, 2021 as the polar vortex was heading south towards Texas. Note the forecast for 11 PM on the 7:35 PM screenshot was for -11°F. By 10:16, that forecast changed to -18°F. That change in forecast for three hours in the future was three times the total climate change in the 20th century.

Is sea level rise going to start flooding the coastal cities? The chart below (Figure 30) shows the tidal change for San Francisco Bay compared to sea level rise in the last 120 years. The blue bar represents the 6.5′ sea level fluctuations within a 24-hour period, every day. The green bar represents the 8″ total global sea level change in the last 120 years. If that sea level rise continues at the same rate, the dashed green line would represent the future in 120 years…again, if the trend continues which Mother Nature controls. In reality, most would never likely notice the 1-2mm/year sea level rise (1″ every 25 years). The earth is not flooding.

One final point of perspective. If we can’t change the weather, we can’t change the climate. Mother Nature is amazing, this planet is a really big organism that tends to act like one big lava lamp. This article just scratched the surface of the true complexity involved.

Climate Change and the Environment

Taking care of the environment is critical, so is producing energy. Much of the climate discussion has clouded important discussions regarding energy production. Smart ways to produce energy must consider many things like resource sustainability, energy reliability, environmental impacts and cost if we all want to be able to enjoy the benefits of energy. All sources of energy have pros and cons, including undesirable environmental impacts. I hope we can address those issues with clarity (not clouded by politics) and backed by solid science.

Bottom line: THE SCIENCE IS COMPLICATED…and it is not settled!! Good science continues to challenge the assumptions.

If you found this article helpful and want links to dig in further, here are some links to folks I found to approach this subject reasonably and realistically. Yes, there will be moments of political bantering in the videos but that is unavoidable, from any angle. I have heard the comments like “they are in the pockets of the fossil fuel companies.” There are pockets everywhere…everyone can be construed to be politically or financially motivated. I encourage you to learn more about these scientists, focus on the science they present and make your own analysis.

Dr. Roy Spencer – University of Alabama

Dr. Judith Curry – Former Chair of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech (video interview)

Dr. Patrick Moore – Environmentalist – His book Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom addresses many issues surrounding the climate debate (polar bears, reefs, ocean acidity, etc.) Good stuff.

Climate 4 You – Lots of charts and graphs

The only difference between the images above is 12 minutes and a lens change. The first picture taken at 8:07 PM (wide angle) tells the story of a calm, relaxing evening sunset. This setting makes you want to take a walk along the beach with someone you love. 🙂 The second picture taken at 8:19 PM (telephoto lens) tells the story of rough seas, storms…take cover. Just 12 minutes and the lens change tells a completely different story and a offers a completely different perspective. Just like life! When it comes to climate change, the first picture is what I see.

Good Day!! 🙂