Tag Archives: global warming

Can you spot the man-made climate change?

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As best I can tell, the only constant in climate is change, As an example, the record of northern temperatures for the last 10,000 years, below, shows nothing but major ups and downs following the end of the last ice age 9500 years ago. The only pattern, if you call it a pattern, is fractal chaos. Anti-change politicos like to concentrate on the near-recent 110 years from 1890 to 2000. This is the small up line at the right, but they ignore the previous 10000 or more, ignore the fact that the last 17 years show no change, and ignore the variation within the 100 years (they call it weather). I find I can not spot the part of the change that’s man-made.

10,000 years of climate change based on greenland ice cores. Ole Humlum – Professor, University of Oslo Department of Geosciences.

10,000 years of northern climate temperatures based on Greenland ice cores. Dr. Ole Humlum, Dept. of Geosciences, University of Oslo. Can you spot the part of the climate change that’s man-made?

Jon Stewart makes the case for man-made climate change.

Steven Colbert makes his case for belief: If you don’t believe it you’re stupid.

Steven Colbert makes the claim that man-made climate change is so absolutely apparent that all the experts agree, and that anyone who doubts is crazy, stupid, or politically motivated (he, of course is not). Freeman Dyson, one of the doubters, is normally not considered crazy or stupid. The approach reminds me of “the emperor’s new clothes.” Only the good, smart people see it. The same people used to call it “Global Warming” based on a model prediction of man-made warming. The name was changed to “climate change” since the planet isn’t warming. The model predicted strong warming in the upper atmosphere, but that isn’t happening either; ski areas are about as cold as ever (we’ve got good data from ski areas).

I note that the climate on Jupiter has changed too in the last 100 years. A visible sign of this is that the great red spot has nearly disappeared. But it’s hard to claim that’s man-made. There’s a joke here, somewhere.

Jupiter's red spot has shrunk significantly. Here it is now. NASA

Jupiter’s red spot has shrunk significantly. Here it is now. NASA

As a side issue, it seems to me that some global warming could be a good thing. The periods that were warm had peace and relative plenty, while periods of cold, like the little ice age, 500 years ago were times of mass starvation and plague. Similarly, things were a lot better during the medieval warm period (1000 AD) than during the dark ages 500-900 AD. The Roman warm period (100 BC-50 AD) was again warm and (relatively) civilized. Perhaps we owe some of the good food production of today to the warming shown on the chart above. Civilization is good. Robert E. Buxbaum January 14, 2015. (Corrected January 19; I’d originally labeled Steven Colbert as Jon Stewart)

 

17+ years of no climate change

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Much of the data underlying climate change is bad, as best I can tell, and quite a lot of the animosity surrounding climate legislation comes from the failure to acknowledge this. Our (US) government likes to show the climate increasing at 4-6°C/century, or .05°C/year, but this is based on bad data of average global temperatures, truncated conveniently to 1880, and the incorrect assumption that trends always continue — a bad idea for stock investing too. We really don’t have any good world-wide temperature going back any further the 1990s, something the Canadian ice service acknowledges (see chart below) but we do not. Worse yet, we adjust our data to correct for supposed errors.

Theory vs experiment in climate change data

Theory vs experiment in climate change data; 17 years with no change.

High quality observations begin only about 10 years ago, and since then we have seen 17+ years of no significant climate change, not the .05°C per year predicted. Our models predicted an ice-free Arctic by 2013, but we had one of the coldest winters of the century. Clearly the models are wrong. Heat can’t hide, and in particular it can’t hide in the upper atmosphere where the heat is supposed to be congregating. The predictive models were not chaotic, and weather is, but instead show regular, slow temperature rises based on predictions of past experimental data.

In Canada and Australia, the climate experts are nice enough to put confidence bars on the extrapolated data before publishing it. Some researchers are also nice enough to provide data going back further, to late Roman times when the weather was really warm, or 20,000 years ago, when we had an ice age (it’s unlikely that the ice age ended because of automobile traffic).

Canada's version of Ice coverage data. The grey part is the error bar. Canada is nice enough to admit they know relatively little of what the climate was like in the 70s and 80s. We do not.

Canada’s version of Ice coverage data. The grey part is the error bar. Canada is nice enough to admit they don’t know what it was like in the 70s and 80s. We do not.

So what’s so wrong about stopping US coal use, even if it does not cause global warming. For one, it’s bad diplomatically — it weakens us and strengthens countries that hate us (like Iran), and countries like China that burn lots of coal and really pollute the air. It also diverts the US from real air pollution and land use discussions. If you want less air pollution, perhaps nuclear is the way to go. Finally, there you have to ask, even if we could adjust the earth’s temperature at will, who would get control of the thermostat? Who would decide if this summer should be warm or cold, or who should get rains, or sun. With great power comes great headaches.

Robert Buxbaum, June 21, 2014

Amazing tornado drought of 2014

At 143 days as of April 10, 2014, the span between major tornadoes (EF3s and stronger) is the 6th longest in the last 60 years, and it isn’t over yet. Even small tornadoes are becoming more scarce. Last year saw few hurricanes and tornadoes, and so far we’ve had only 100 total tornadoes (see below); in a typical year there’d be 323. The good news has gone unreported, I think, because there’s no event, no photo-opportunity; no interviews with survivors, police, and experts.

US tornadoes: typical and year to date, January 1 to April 10 2014, NOAA

US tornadoes: typical and year to date, January 1 to April 10 2014, from NOAA, storm center

Perhaps this is a bonuses from global warming, or from the very cold winter just passed, or from the chaotic, weather; it’s hard to tell weather from climate. Whatever the reason, it’s happening and good. Here’s how tornadoes lift stuff up, with video (Einstein’s explanation). Here’s an explanation of hurricanes (my explanation).

Robert E. Buxbaum, April 11, 2014. In other good news, the ozone hole is shrinking. genetically modified foods don’t seem to cause cancer, and many bad things are good for you, like sunlight. Enjoy the good.

Climate change, and the metaphysical basis of humor

It’s funny because ….. it’s metaphysical, it deals with what’s real and relevant, and what’s secondary and transient– an aspect as fundamental as it is funny. We claim we understand the real, but realize (down deep) that we don’t. A classic of old-time comedy is the clever slave, the sympathetic stooges, of the brave coward, or the most common version– the stupid person who does clever things at the right moment. A typical comic structure is to establish, early on, that this person is stupid (as well as being low, and crooked); he may say some stupid, low things, so we accept it as so, or perhaps someone in authority tells us, as in “Puddin’head Wilson”. But as the story progresses, we see the person do something clever, or show loyalty and bravery. The viewer begins to laugh because he knows that reality is sort-of this way, though our minds must keep people pigeonholed. The reader already knows, perhaps from other comedies, that the slave will turn out to be the hero, the stupid one will one-up the smart and the chicken will save the day– somehow.

Ward Sullivan in the New Yorker

Ward Sullivan in the New Yorker. It’s unsettling when you don’t know if this is a new reality or a passing phase.

In life, we grab on to the patters we see because the alternative, chaos, is worse. All winters are cold, but will this winter be longer or shorter than normal; perhaps the groundhog knows, or perhaps the president of the US knows? We’ve learned to ignore the groundhog, but trust the president. Once we accept, from authority, that winters are getting warmer, we resist any effort to think we may be wrong, or that the pattern of the past may have changed; uncertainty seems worse. But we laugh at comedy, and occasionally get mad. How much evidence before one accepts that the temporary is permanent, or that ones original assessment was flawed? In comedy there’s always a stuffed-shirt character who tries to show off and gets hurt, perhaps by a pie in the face. Then it happens again, and again. The injuries and slow acceptance of the new reality create the humor. A common ending is to discover that the clever slave is a half-nobleman, perhaps the son of the stuffed-shirt, and the crowd goes home happy, with someone new we can trust.

With global warming and climate change, I see the same comedy being played out, and I expect it to reach the same, happy ending. For 20-30 years, till about 1998, there were a string warming winters; as a result we come to believe things will keep getting warmer. Then the president says we have to stop it, and laws are passed but not implemented; Al Gore gets a nobel prize for his efforts to stop global warming; the computer experts predict global disaster if we don’t change by 2005. The studies predict 4-6°C warming per century warming with massive flooding; we make new laws and point to shrinking of Himalayan glaciers, shrinking polar ice, and the lack of snow on Kilimanjaro — all justifications for the need to act fast and sacrifice for the future, and the warming stops. So far it’s been 16 years and no warming, the snow’s comes back to Kilimanjaro, and the seas have not risen. A few scientists start saying there may be a problem with the models, and the president gets mad about the headless chicken skeptics.

The US is then/now hit with the coldest temperatures since the early 1900s, with as much snow as 1904, but it’s never clear if this is a fluke or the new normal reality. Has the real pattern of warming changed, or maybe it never was. Kilimanjaro’s still snow-capped, the glaciers have returned to the Himalayas, and the antarctic ice swells to record size. The US sees a year with no major hurricanes.  We can laugh, but there’s no laughter from the President of The US, or the Prince of England or any who solemnly predicted disaster. Like the stuffed shirts in a comedy, they double down, and roar at the deniers; “They’re pawns of the lobbyists.” And I suspect the resolution will be that some climate denier will be crowned as the new expert, and we’ll go on to worry about a new disaster.

For what it’s worth, the weather seems to be chaotic (Chaos is funny); we appear to have been seeing part of a cycle that has an up-period and a down period. Something like that is shown by the 100 year plot of temperature data from Charlotte Carolina shown below.

Charlotte SC average temperatures over the last century.

Charlotte SC average temperatures over the last century. Perhaps the recent warming is part of a cycle. Is it clear there has been a change in climate. If so, where does the change start?

Robert E. Buxbaum, March 9, 2014. Surrealism is funny because it taps into the ridiculousness of life. Metaphysics humor is behind a statistics joke, an architecture cartoon, and my zen joke.  Physics is funny too.

Where does industrial CO2 come from? China mostly.

The US is in the process of imposing strict regulations on carbon dioxide as a way to stop global warming and climate change. We have also closed nearly new power plants, replacing them with cleaner options like a 2.2 billion dollar solar-electric generator in lake Ivanpah, and this January our president imposed a ban on lightbulbs of 60 W and higher. But it might help to know that China produced twice as much of the main climate change gas, carbon dioxide (CO2) as the US in 2012, and the ratio seems to be growing. One reason China produces so much CO2 is that China generates electricity from dirty coal using inefficient turbines.

Where the CO2 is coming from: a fair amount from the US and Europe, but mostly from China and India too.

From EDGAR 4.2; As of 2012 twice as much carbon dioxide, CO2 is coming from China as from the US and Europe.

It strikes me that a good approach to reducing the world’s carbon-dioxide emissions is to stop manufacturing so much in China. Our US electric plants use more efficient generating technology and burn lower carbon fuels than China does. We then add scrubbers and pollution reduction equipment that are hardly used in China. US manufacture thus produces not only less carbon dioxide than China, it also avoids other forms of air pollution, like NOx and SOx. Add to this the advantage of having fewer ships carrying products to and from China, and it’s clear that we could significantly reduce the world’s air problems by moving manufacture back to the USA.

I should also note that manufacture in the US helps the economy by keeping jobs and taxes here. A simple way to reduce purchases from China and collect some tax revenue would be to impose an import tariff on Chinese goods based, perhaps on the difference in carbon emissions or other pollution involved in Chinese manufacture and transport. While I have noted a lack of global warming, sixteen years now, that doesn’t mean I like pollution. It’s worthwhile to clean the air, and if we collect tariffs from the Chinese and help the US economy too, all the better.

Robert E. Buxbaum, February 24, 2014. Nuclear power produces no air pollution and uses a lot less land area compared to solar and wind projects.

Patterns in climate; change is the only constant

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There is a general problem when looking for climate trends: you have to look at weather data. That’s a problem because weather data goes back thousands of years, and it’s always changing. As a result it’s never clear what start year to use for the trend. If you start too early or too late the trend disappears. If you start your trend line in a hot year, like in the late roman period, the trend will show global cooling. If you start in a cold year, like the early 1970s, or the small ice age (1500 -1800) you’ll find global warming: perhaps too much. Begin 10-15 years ago, and you’ll find no change in global temperatures.

Ice coverage data shows the same problem: take the Canadian Arctic Ice maximums, shown below. If you start your regression in 1980-83, the record ice year (green) you’ll see ice loss. If you start in 1971, the year of minimum ice (red), you’ll see ice gain. It might also be nice to incorporate physics thought a computer model of the weather, but this method doesn’t seem to help. Perhaps that’s because the physics models generally have to be fed coefficients calculated from the trend line. Using the best computers and a trend line showing ice loss, the US Navy predicted, in January 2006, that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2013. It didn’t happen; a new prediction is 2016 — something I suspect is equally unlikely. Five years ago the National Academy of Sciences predicted global warming would resume in the next year or two — it didn’t either. Garbage in -garbage out, as they say.

Arctic Ice in Northern Canada waters, 1970-2014 from icecanada.ca 2014 is not totally in yet. What year do you start when looking for a trend?

Arctic Ice in Northern Canada waters, 1971-2014 from the Canadian ice service 2014 is not totally in yet , but is likely to exceed 2013. If you are looking for trends, in what year do you start?

The same trend problem appears with predicting sea temperatures and el Niño, a Christmastime warming current in the Pacific ocean. This year, 2013-14, was predicted to be a super El Niño, an exceptionally hot, stormy year with exceptionally strong sea currents. Instead, there was no el Niño, and many cities saw record cold — Detroit by 9 degrees. The Antarctic ice hit record levels, stranding a ship of anti warming activists. There were record few hurricanes.  As I look at the Pacific sea temperature from 1950 to the present, below, I see change, but no pattern or direction: El Nada (the nothing). If one did a regression analysis, the slope might be slightly positive or negative, but r squared, the significance, would be near zero. There is no real directionality, just noise if 1950 is the start date.

El Niño and La Niña since 1950. There is no sign that they are coming more often, or stronger. Nor is there evidence even that the ocean is warming.

El Niño and La Niña since 1950. There is no sign that they are coming more often, or stronger. Nor is clear evidence that the ocean is warming.

This appears to be as much a fundamental problem in applied math as in climate science: when looking for a trend, where do you start, how do you handle data confidence, and how do you prevent bias? A thought I’ve had is to try to weight a regression in terms of the confidence in the data. The Canadian ice data shows that the Canadian Ice Service is less confident about their older data than the new; this is shown by the grey lines. It would be nice if some form of this confidence could be incorporated into the regression trend analysis, but I’m not sure how to do this right.

It’s not so much that I doubt global warming, but I’d like a better explanation of the calculation. Weather changes: how do you know when you’re looking at climate, not weather? The president of the US claimed that the science is established, and Prince Charles of England claimed climate skeptics were headless chickens, but it’s certainly not predictive, and that’s the normal standard of knowledge. Neither country has any statement of how one would back up their statements. If this is global warming, I’d expect it to be warm.

Robert Buxbaum, Feb 5, 2014. Here’s a post I’ve written on the scientific method, and on dealing with abnormal statistics. I’ve also written about an important recent statistical fraud against genetically modified corn. As far as energy policy, I’m inclined to prefer hydrogen over batteries, and nuclear over wind and solar. The president has promoted the opposite policy — for unexplained, “scientific” reasons.

Ocean levels down from 3000 years ago; up from 20,000 BC

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In 2006 Al Gore claimed that industry was causing 2-5°C of global warming per century, and that this, in turn, would cause the oceans to rise by 8 m by 2100. Despite a record cold snap this week, and record ice levels in the antarctic, the US this week banned all incandescent light bulbs of 40W and over in an effort to stop the tragedy. This was a bad move, in my opinion, for a variety of reasons, not least because it seems the preferred replacement, compact fluorescents, produce more pollution than incandescents when you include disposal of the mercury and heavy metals they contain. And then there is the weak connection between US industry and global warming.

From the geologic record, we know that 2-5° higher temperatures have been seen without major industrial outputs of pollution. These temperatures do produce the sea level rises that Al Gore warns about. Temperatures and sea levels were higher 3200 years ago (the Trojan war period), without any significant technology. Temperatures and sea levels were also higher 1900 years ago during the Roman warming. In those days Pevensey Castle (England), shown below, was surrounded by water.

During Roman times Pevensey Castle (at right) was surrounded by water at high tide.If Al Gore is right, it will be surrounded by water again soon.

During Roman times the world was warmer, and Pevensey Castle (right) was surrounded by water;. If Al Gore is right about global warming, it will be surrounded by water again by 2100.

From a plot of sea level and global temperature, below, we see that during cooler periods the sea was much shallower than today: 140 m shallower 20,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, for example. In those days, people could walk from Asia to Alaska. Climate, like weather appears to be cyclically chaotic. I don’t think the last ice age ended because of industry, but it is possible that industry might help the earth to warm by 2-5°C by 2100, as Gore predicts. That would raise the sea levels, assuming there is no new ice age.

Global temperatures and ocean levels rise and sink together

Global temperatures and ocean levels change by a lot; thousands of years ago.

While I doubt there is much we could stop the next ice age — it is very hard to change a chaotic cycle — trying to stop global cooling seems more worthwhile than trying to stop warming. We could survive a 2 m rise in the seas, e.g. by building dykes, but a 2° of cooling would be disastrous. It would come with a drastic reduction in crops, as during the famine year of 1814. And if the drop continued to a new ice age, that would be much worse. The last ice age included mile high glaciers that extended over all of Canada and reached to New York. Only the polar bear and saber-toothed tiger did well (here’s a Canada joke, and my saber toothed tiger sculpture).

The good news is that the current global temperature models appear to be wrong, or highly over-estimated. Average global temperatures have not changed in the last 16 years, though the Chinese keep polluting the air (for some reason, Gore doesn’t mind Chinese pollution). It is true that arctic ice extent is low, but then antarctic ice is at record high levels. Perhaps it’s time to do nothing. While I don’t want more air pollution, I’d certainly re-allow US incandescent light bulbs. In cases where you don’t know otherwise, perhaps the wisest course is to do nothing.

Robert Buxbaum, January 8, 2014

The 2013 hurricane drought

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News about the bad weather that didn’t happen: there were no major hurricanes in 2013. That is, there was not one storm in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, or the Gulf of Mexico with a maximum wind speed over 110 mph. None. As I write this, we are near the end of the hurricane season (it officially ends Nov. 30), and we have seen nothing like what we saw in 2012; compare the top and bottom charts below. Barring a very late, very major storm, this looks like it will go down as the most uneventful season in at least 2 decades. Our monitoring equipment has improved over the years, but even with improved detection, we’ve seen nothing major. The last time we saw this lack was 1994 — and before that 1986, 1972, and 1968.

Hurricanes 2012 -2013. This year looks like it will be the one with the lowest number and strength of modern times.

Hurricanes 2012 -2013. This year there were only two hurricanes, and both were category 1 The last time we had this few was 1994. By comparison, in 2012 we saw 5 category 1 hurricanes, 3 Category 2s, and 2 Category 3s including Sandy, the most destructive hurricane to hit New York City since 1938.

In the pacific, major storms are called typhoons, and this year has been fairly typical: 13 typhoons, 5 of them super, the same as in 2012.  Weather tends to be chaotic, but it’s nice to have a year without major hurricane damage or death.

In the news this month, no major storm lead to the lack of destruction of the boats, beaches and stately homes of the North Carolina shore.

In the news, a lack of major storms lead to the lack of destruction of the boats, beaches, and stately homes of the North Carolina shore.

The reason you have not heard of this before is that it’s hard to write a story about events that didn’t happen. Good news is as important as bad, and 2013 had been predicted to be one of the worst seasons on record, but then it didn’t happen and there was nothing to write about. Global warming is supposed to increase hurricane activity, but global warming has taken a 16 year rest. You didn’t hear about the lack of global warming for the same reason you didn’t hear about the lack of storms.

Here’s why hurricanes form in fall and spin so fast, plus how they pick up stuff (an explanation from Einstein). In other good weather news, the ozone hole is smaller, and arctic ice is growing (I suggest we build a northwest passage). It’s hard to write about the lack of bad news, still Good science requires an open mind to the data, as it is, or as it isn’t. Here is a simple way to do abnormal statistics, plus why 100 year storms come more often than once every 100 years.

Robert E. Buxbaum. November 23, 2013.

Lets make a Northwest Passage

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The Northwest passage opened briefly last year, and the two years before allowing some minimal shipping between the Atlantic and the Pacific by way of the Arctic ocean, but was closed in 2013 because there was too much ice. I’ve a business / commercial thought though: we could make a semi-permanent northwest passage if we dredged a canal across the Bootha peninsula at Taloyoak, Nunavut (Canada).Map of Northern Canada showing cities and the Perry Channel, the current Northwest passage. A canal north of the Bootha Peninsula would seem worthwhile.

Map of Northern Canada showing cities and the Perry Channel, the current Northwest passage. A canal north or south of the Bootha Peninsula would seem worthwhile.

 

 

As things currently stand, ships must sail 500 miles north of Taloyoak, and traverse the Parry Channel. Shown below is a picture of ice levels in August 2012 and 2013. The proposed channels could have been kept open even in 2013 providing a route for valuable shipping commerce. As a cheaper alternative, one could maintain the Hudson Bay trading channel at Fort Ross, between the Bootha Peninsula and Somerset Island. This is about 250 miles north of Taloyoak, but still 250 miles south of the current route.

Arctic Ice August 2012-2013; both Taloyoak and Igloolik appear open this year.

The NW passage was open by way of the Perry Channel north of Somerset Island and Baffin Island in 2012, but not 2013. The proposed channels could have been kept open even this year.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum, October 2013. Here are some random thoughts on Canadian crime, the true north, and the Canadian pastime (Ice fishing).

Arctic and Antarctic Ice Increases; Antarctic at record levels

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Good news if you like ice. I’m happy to report that there has been a continued increase in the extent of both Antarctic and Arctic Ice sheets, in particular the Antarctic sheet. Shown below is a plot of Antarctic ice size (1981-2010) along with the average (the black line), the size for 2012 (dotted line), and the size for 2013 so far. This year (2013) it’s broken new records. Hooray for the ice.

Antarctic ice at record size in 2013, after breaking records in 2012

Antarctic ice at record size in 2013, after a good year in 2012

The arctic ice has grown too, and though it’s not at record levels, the Arctic ice growth  is more visually dramatic, see photo below. It’s also more welcome — to polar bears at least. It’s not so welcome if you are a yachter, or a shipping magnate trying to use the Northwest passage to get your products to market cheaply.

Arctic Ice August 2012-2013

Arctic Ice August 2012-2013

The recent (October 2013) global warming report from NASA repeats the Arctic melt warnings from previous reports, but supports that assertion with an older satellite picture — the one from 2006. That was a year when the Arctic had even less ice than in 2012, but the date should be a warning. From the picture, you’d think it’s an easy sail through the Northwest passage; some 50 yachts tried it this summer, and none got through, though some got half way. It’s a good bet you can buy those ships cheap.

I should mention that only the Antarctic data is relevant to Al Gore’s 1996 prediction of a 20 foot rise in the sea level by 2100. Floating ice, as in the arctic, displaces the same amount of mass as water. Ice floats but has the same effect on sea level as if it were melted; it’s only land-based ice that affects sea level. While there is some growth seen in land-ice in the arctic photos above — compare Greenland and Canada on the 2 photos, there is also a lot of glacier ice loss in Norway (upper left corners). The ocean levels are rising, but I don’t think this is the cause, and it’s not rising anywhere near as fast as Al Gore said: more like 1.7mm/year, or 6.7 inches per century. I don’t know what the cause is, BTW. Perhaps I’ll post speculate on this when I have a good speculation.

Other good news: For the past 15 years global warming appears to have taken a break. And the ozone hole shrunk in 2012 to near record smallness. Yeah ozone. The most likely model for all this, in my opinion, is to view weather as chaotic and fractal; that is self-similar. Calculus works on this, just not the calculus that’s typically taught in school. Whatever the cause, its good news, and welcome.

Robert E. Buxbaum, October 21, 2013. Here are some thoughts about how to do calculus right, and how to do science right; that is, look at the data first; don’t come in with a hypothesis.