Climate change deniers like to take graphs of surface air temperatures for the last 10 years and claim that they disprove that the earth is warming. This is “cherry-picking” the data.
Look at the following graph from NASA. If you only focus on the past 10 years, you might think that things have stabilized. True, the graph has several dips, but the overall trend is upward. In 1970 you might have thought that things were stable, but in retrospect it was only a long pause. It’s like having a cool week in May and saying that the “Summer is Coming” theory is wrong.
Another problem is that this graph only shows surface air temperatures. There is a lot more to the earth than the surface air. The following graph shows ocean water heat content, which has continued to rise in the past decade. You could dishonestly show a graph starting with the outlier in 2004 and say it shows that ocean temperatures are stable, but any scientist can tell you that outliers happen. Events such as El Nino and volcano eruptions can have significant short term effects on the climate. Disregard the one high point in 2004 and the one low point in 2001 and the trend is obvious and undeniable.
And this graph shows historic arctic ice coverage, with the sudden decrease in the past century.
Here’s a graph of recent ice coverage. Note that there used to be a lot more sea ice in the arctic than antarctic. Arctic summer ice coverage in 2013 was barely half of what it was in 1998, when deniers like to say that warming stopped. Antarctic sea ice coverage has been pretty stable over the decade, and it’s not fully understood why. But the loss of total world sea ice coverage is clear.
And noting that the ice is not just decreasing in coverage, but also in thickness, here’s a graph of arctic ice volume. The jiggly up and down reflects the seasonal variation. Rather than stabilize, the rate of decrease seems to have accelerated in the past decade.
A little physics: When you have a mixture of ice and water, the temperature is going to be stable at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. As you add heat, the temperature will not change, but the ice will continue to melt into water. Only after all the ice has melted will the temperature of the mixture begin to rise. The point is that for ice to melt heat has to go in. The heat content of the system continues to increase though the temperature stays the same.
The melting of the ice caps and glaciers around the world along with ocean warming shows that total heat in the earth has continued to increase over the past decade, despite the pause in surface air temperature.
There is a strong vested interest by many corporations and industries to deny global climate change. The acceptance would lead to policies that would decrease their profits. Huge amounts of money go into climate change denial, and it’s become a popular Tea Party position. A lot of the strategy is taken right out of the 1990s Tobacco industry playbook to deny any health impact from smoking; e.g. cherry-pick the data, find the 1 or 2% in the field who disagree and push them as the real experts, and lobby lawmakers. For example, a memo was leaked from the American Petroleum Institute about a plan to “recruit a cadre of scientists … and to train them in public relations so they can help convince journalists, politicians and the public that the risk of global warming is too uncertain to justify controls on greenhouse gases.” They offered scientists $10,000, plus travel expenses to publish articles critical of climate change. Statements were taken out of context from scientists’ emails and published to imply that climate scientists were colluding to fool the public (“Climategate“). Wikipedia lists several other examples of industry and far right groups donating millions of dollars in efforts to discredit the science and influence politicians and public opinion. An example of the results of their efforts are the trumpeting of any piece of data that seems to discredit the theory, such as the recent 10-year surface temperature graph, rather than viewing the data as a whole.
Climatology is not a simple science. I trust the roughly 98% of climatologists who agree that the climate is changing more than television pundits, bloggers and columnists who know nothing more about climate than what they feel when they go outdoors, and who want to keep their corporate sponsors happy. It has nothing to do with “Left” vs. “Right”, it is about science vs. politics, reason vs. profit.
14 responses so far ↓
1 Daryl // Dec 16, 2013 at 6:08 pm
Note that the term used to “Global Warming”. But that implies that everywhere in the world will get warmer. Although it is true that the average temperature is increasing, this can actually lower temperatures in some areas of the world due to altered weather patterns. And so a more accurate term used today is “Global Climate Change”.
2 Don // Dec 16, 2013 at 7:59 pm
Of course there is also a TON of money to be made by the Chicken Littles like Al Gore (who still flies around in his jet and justifies it by paying carbon “offsets”).
I trust data much more than I trust Al Gore and the rest of the Chicken Littles. I can look at data and the data I look at says the earth is getting warmer. It also, as I posted on my blog, says there has been a pause in the warming.
I can also apply logic to the data unlike many of the Chicken Littles. I can understand that this earth has gone through many, many heating and cooling cycles and likely will go through many, many more before it shrugs off the pesky carbon based lifeforms inhabiting it.
Here’s a graph including land and ocean.
Notice for the last 10 years the temperature hasn’t increased.
I notice that you talk about the Artic yet ignore the Antarctic. That couldn’t be because ice in the Antarctic is growing at record levels would it?
http://notrickszone.com/2013/10/22/spiegel-surprised-by-amazingly-robust-record-antarctic-sea-ice-nasas-walt-meier-bewildered-can-only-speculate/
In fact ice in the Antarctic “end of September NASA recorded a record maximum sea ice extent of 19.47 million square kilometers meters, the most since satellite measurements began 30 years ago.”
As I said on my blog, I’m not trying to say the earth isn’t warming. I’m just trying to say use your head and don’t believe someone just because they are a scientist.
3 Don // Dec 16, 2013 at 8:00 pm
Rats, my image didn’t post.
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/RunningMeans.gif
That’s what it was supposed to be.
4 Don // Dec 16, 2013 at 8:18 pm
http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=90046&sitesection=dailycaller_nws_us_sty_vmpp&VID=25434689
That’s a very interesting debate between 2 people who probably share our separate views pretty closely.
5 Don // Dec 16, 2013 at 8:20 pm
Sorry, that wasn’t it. Here’s a link to the page I found it on.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/16/global-warming-satellite-data-shows-arctic-sea-ice-coverage-up-50-percent/
6 Richard // Dec 16, 2013 at 8:56 pm
I’ve just never understood why this is a left vs. right issue, and I don’t understand why the far right has decided to take the stand they have. Either the earth is warming due to human activity or is isn’t. The overwhelming majority of climatology scientists say it is. In fact, it is nearly unanimous. Yes, there are a few who disagree, but very few. Does the far right believe all these climatology scientists are lying? For what purpose? Why is this a political issue?
7 Don // Dec 16, 2013 at 9:12 pm
I can’t speak for the far right but I can address one issue.
It isn’t an overwhelming majority of climate scientists. The CLs tell you that but there are many climate scientists who disagree.
I think many on the far right disbelieve it because the far left believes it so strongly. You know, kind of like how the left think Obama walks on water while the right thinks he’s the devil incarnate.
I have said all along that it’s obvious the earth has been warming. That is a fact. You can plot the data and see it.
The issue that isn’t a “fact” is whether it’s man caused. There are quite a few scientists who disagree with that side. Not as many, but it’s not just one or 2.
There is evidence that man is causing it but there is also evidence that there are other factors involved. But the AlGorsians don’t make as much money if it’s not man.
Use your own brain. When we have record high temps the CLs say it’s GW. When we have record cold temps the CLs say it’s GW. When we have large hurricanes like Katrina the CLs say it’s GW and then they say the hurricane activity will increase. Except the hurricane activity decreased after Katrina, so guess what. Yep, that was caused by GW too.
It’s quite convenient when you can point to every single weather event no matter what and say it’s from global warming.
And that’s why I’m a skeptic. I’m not a denier. I know the earth is getting warmer and I suspect man is helping it along. I also think the Chicken Littles need to tone down their mantra. But so do the real deniers. Neither one is really helping solve the problem.
8 Daryl // Dec 16, 2013 at 11:11 pm
Richard, I’m with you completely. I don’t know why it is frequently cast as a left vs. right issue. And I don’t know why Al Gore’s name gets dragged in — he’s not a climatologist and so his opinion is not worth any more than Bill O’Reilly’s.
Since 2001, 39 international science academies have made formal declarations confirming human induced global warming and urging nations to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Concurring).
In 2001 the American Association of Petroleum Geologists was the only scientific group disputing human caused global warming, and in 2007 they revised their position to neutral.
Recent surveys of climatologists, earth scientists and meteorologists have been summarized by the authors as “It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.” and “97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC (Anthropogenic Climate Change) “. and “Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”
All of these are at the same Wikipedia link I list above.
I don’t know of any climatologist who blames Katrina or any other specific event on global climate change. The popular press likes to discuss it, but that’s not a scientific position.
And what the heck is a “CL”?
9 Don // Dec 17, 2013 at 8:19 am
A CL is a Chicken Little. I don’t think I need to explain further.
Here’s a link to a story about a survey of meteorologists and their opinion of the cause of GW. Only a tad more than half (52%) say they are sure it’s human caused.
Here’s a link to the Wikipedia page of scientist who oppose the mainstream assessment on GW.
So you see it’s not settled and it’s not “all of them”.
And please pay attention. I didn’t say they blamed Katrina on GW, only that they are saying hurricanes are going to increase due to GW. Well, they were saying that for a while, until hurricane activity decreased and then they blamed that on GW.
This is so typical though. It’s just like when Obama took office if he didn’t do the stimulus the unemployment rate would go above 8% so he did the stimulus. After it went above 8% (like most economists predicted) he changed his tune and now it was because this was the worst recession since the big one and now 7% unemployment is the “new normal”.
This is what the left does. They do it on Climate Change and they do it on health care and they do it on everything else they get their hands one.
Remember “if you like your plan you can keep your plan”? Almost 6 MILLION people have found out that wasn’t true. The left’s answer? Well yes, but you will get a much better plan. your plan was sub-standard. We know what’s best for you and it wasn’t your plan.
Wow did I get off target. But this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. Daryl said the deniers are pointing to the last 10 years and saying that warming has paused. Then he shows a few charts but the farthest back any of them goes is 1450 years. Let’s look at ALL THE DATA then. Let’s not “cherry pick”.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/65_Myr_Climate_Change_Rev.jpg
There’s a chart of the earth’s temperature over the last 65 million years.
Not far enough back? How about 542 million years?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/All_palaeotemps.png
The sky isn’t falling.
10 Daryl // Dec 17, 2013 at 10:29 am
I promised myself I wouldn’t get drawn into these tit-for-tat debates, but I’ll respond one more time and then be done.
The followup graph you linked to is the same one as my first graph showing surface air temperatures over land and ocean, and doesn’t address ocean water temperatures at all. And your statement that I ignored the Antarctic is demonstrably false; re-read my post and look at the sea ice graph. Yes, Antarctic sea surface ice is growing, but much more slowly than arctic sea ice and glaciers are shrinking. As I mentioned, global climate change doesn’t mean the earth is warming everywhere at the same rate. Some places actually cool off as weather patterns change. But the overall global surface ice is rapidly decreasing.
Regarding your point about looking much further back in history, certainly the earth has been much hotter and much colder in the past. But not since the development of civilization. Any of the major historic changes on the graph would have catastrophic effect on the modern world as ocean levels rise or glaciers moved south. Anything humans are doing that causes or accentuates change should be at least acknowledged and understood.
You posted some links showing that scientists disagree on climate change. For example the Daily Caller discusses a survey of meteorologists. But if you actually read the survey, you find that 93% of climate scientists who publish (i.e. are active in the field) agree that the climate is changing and that humans are mostly responsible. Non-publishing meteorologists (i.e. those least active in the field) were the least convinced at 59%. The authors conclude, “These results, together with those of other similar studies, suggest high levels of expert consensus about human-caused climate change”.
And the Wikipedia link of a list of scientists opposing, if you look through the list of 38 scientists you find 2 climatologists and 3 meteorologists. One of the climatologists and one meteorologist just question the accuracy of the models, but don’t deny the connection, and the other climatologist agrees that climate change is human caused, but doesn’t believe it will be harmful. The rest of the list of scientists consists of astronomers, mathematicians, physicists, and geologists, whose expertise on climate is no greater than yours and mine.
Compare that to the thousands of climatologists who answer surveys in the affirmative. There is a strong consensus.
And just another comment: Using derogatory terms like “Lefty” or “Chicken Little” makes your argument look weaker. If you have to attack the character of the other side it suggests that you don’t have the data on your side.
11 Don // Dec 17, 2013 at 1:21 pm
Chicken Little = Denier
And I’m done.
12 Don // Dec 17, 2013 at 1:23 pm
Okay just one more point.
I keep saying I agree the earth is getting warmer and I believe it’s likely that man is partially responsible.
Seems like we are in complete agreement about the facts. It’s just the non-facts where we have issues.
That is all.
13 Donna // Dec 17, 2013 at 8:34 pm
Whew, I’m done, too!
14 Daryl // Dec 18, 2013 at 5:52 pm
Oh come on, Donna! You know you enjoyed it!
(Oh?)
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