2. Is climate change real?

Well, first there is the nature of the temperature rise itself. Below is the graph of the global temperature rise since 1880 (as postulated by climate scientists) which shows the generally accepted rise in temperature of about 0.9 °C. There are a number of problems with it, not least regarding how it is constructed. This I will discuss at length in later posts. But more immediately there is the question of why this temperature curve doesn’t look like most real temperature data.

Fig. 2.1: Global temperature rise since 1880.

Actual temperature records don’t look anything like the one above: they look like the one below.

Fig. 2.2: Temperature anomaly at Berlin-Templehof (1701-2013).

This is the temperature record from Berlin showing average monthly temperatures from month to month. It is probably the longest temperature record we have and extends back to 1701, which is doubly remarkable since Daniel Fahrenheit only invented the thermometer and the temperature scale that bears his name in 1714. But there you go.

The first point to note is that the data in the Berlin-Templehof record consists of fluctuations of up to ±5 °C. These are changes to the monthly mean and are not the result of seasonal variations. I suspect the size of these fluctuations is far greater than what most people would imagine them to be if asked to speculate. Was February 1929 really almost 13 °C colder on average than the previous February? Well apparently it was, and we are not talking about the odd cold day here or there, we mean all 28 of them, or most of them at least. But not only that, the average yearly temperatures fluctuated by over two degrees over the period 1701-2013, and the average temperature for each decade by more than one degree. In which case, why are climate scientists getting so worked up about a temperature rise of 0.9 °C over 125 years?

It is a rhetorical question that the Norwegian Nobel Laureate in physicist, Ivar Giaever posed when he resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) in 2011, principally over its stated position that global warming was happening and the “The evidence is incontrovertible”. He pointed out that a rise of the mean temperature on Earth from 288.0 K to 288.8 K (which is also 0.8 °C) in 150 years seems remarkably stable. This represents a change of less than 0.3% per century, which most people (including most physicists) would consider an example of extreme systemic stability.

Then there is the issue of carbon dioxide. The graph below is the plot of CO₂ concentration in parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere as measured near the top of Mauna Loa in Hawaii at an altitude of 3397 m. In climate science this data is one of the few pieces of hard evidence that is undisputed (except perhaps by a few cranks).

Fig. 2.3: The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since 1959.

By 2005 the CO₂ concentration had risen to just over 370 pp, up from 280 ppm in pre-industrial times. This coincides with a temperature rise of about 0.9 °C. Yet if you look at when these changes happened there are striking differences. Two-thirds of the rise in CO₂ levels occurred before 1980, but two-thirds of the temperature rise is after 1980. That is not a strong positive correlation.

Then there is the plateau in temperatures between 1940 and 1980 in Fig 2.1 above. What caused this? We don’t know for sure, but one suggestion is that it may be due to the cooling effect of particles in the air due to industrial pollution, and that this increased as dirty heavy industry expanded after World War II, thus offsetting the temperature rise. This means, though, that up until 1980 there was virtually no noticeable increase in global temperatures. But this raises a much bigger question that rarely gets asked and is never answered, at least not by climate scientists. If temperatures before 1980 had not yet increased, why was it that in the 1980s this whole global warming hysteria suddenly took off? Are climate scientists also clairvoyants? How could their claims be based on evidence if the evidence wasn’t there (yet)?

Part of the reason why I think the global warming debate will not go away is that the whole subject is based on two facts that are undoubtedly true, but which has led many to a conclusion, via bad physics or bad logic, which may not be. The fact that CO₂ levels in the atmosphere are increasing is true, as is the assertion that CO₂ is a greenhouse gas. But this does not mean that increasing CO₂ levels must lead to an increase in temperatures. The greenhouse effect is not linear, as I will probably discuss further at a later date.

What is particularly worrying about climate science is that the things that are controversial now were just as controversial back in the 1980s. Back in 1990, Channel 4 in the UK broadcast a documentary entitled “The Greenhouse Conspiracy” (try getting that commissioned on Channel 4 now). What is particularly striking about the programme is how many of criticisms of global warming it made at the time still remain valid today. Equally striking is how apocalyptic claims made 30 years ago still haven’t come true but are still being touted by climate scientists to justify current policy.

One such issue is extreme weather. We are led to believe that global warming will lead to more extreme weather events such as droughts, storms, floods etc., except of course when it doesn’t. Then the explanation is that warming at the poles reduces the temperature gradient, thus reducing extreme weather. Talk about having your cake and eating it. Except that there is no evidence of warming at the poles. The temperature at the South Pole has gone down since 1956 (when the first measurements were taken) not up, and there is no weather data within 1000 miles of the North Pole and never has been. As for extreme weather, well the USA has some of the longest weather records on the planet, including records of extreme weather. These show that over the last 170 years there has been no increase in the number of hurricanes hitting the USA (see Fig. 2.4), nor was there any change in their average strength.

Fig 2.4: Number of hurricanes hitting the USA by decade (1850-2019).

Over the last 70 years the number of tornadoes has also been stable (see Fig. 2.5) but might actually be going down (2018 was the first year on record where no violent EF4 or EF5 tornadoes were recorded).

 Fig. 2.5: Annual frequency of tornadoes (EF1-EF5) in the USA (1954-2014).

There has been no increase in drought, flooding or wildfires, or in the number of fatalities due to extreme events. And while most of these events are difficult to record accurately, their insurance costs can be measured and these have also remained stable as a proportion of GDP. And before anybody cries foul about the use of %GDP as a valid measure rather than real value in pounds or dollars, I will point out that insurance costs are invariably linked to the value of property, and property values are inextricably linked to increases in GDP.

Then there is the issue of melting polar ice-caps and rising sea levels. The problem here is that very little of this is true either. While glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere may be shrinking, some of those in the Southern Hemisphere have been growing. In New Zealand since 1980 many glaciers have expanded in size after large declines prior to 1960 (see below). Both of these changes are uncorrelated with either the local or the global temperature records.

Fig. 2.6: Length of selected New Zealand glaciers since 1900.

But it is really the claims regarding rising sea levels that need to be addressed. One frequent claim is that melting sea ice will raise sea levels. It won’t. Anyone who understands Archimedes’ principle should understand that. If a floating iceberg melts, then the sea level must remain the same. That is basic physics. The iceberg floats because it displaces a volume of water equal to its own mass: 10% of the iceberg is above the waterline because the density of ice is 10% less than water. When it melts it contracts and exactly fills the hole in the sea that it had previously created. There is no rise in sea level and never can be.

Nor can warming oceans be a significant factor in sea level rise either. The thermal coefficient of expansion of water is 207 ppm/°C. As the average ocean depth is 3688m, a 1 °C rise in all ocean temperatures at all depths would result in a rise of less than 77 cm. However, as it is extremely unlikely that any heating of the ocean surface could extend down beyond more than about 500 m from the surface (remember, warm water is less dense and so rises to the surface), a more likely sea level rise would be a mere 10 cm or 1 mm per year. That is unnoticeable, and un-measureable.

Finally, there is one last philosophical question to consider. If the temperature of our planet is changing, and mankind is responsible, and if it is in our power to set that temperature to one of our choosing, what temperature should we choose? In short, what is the optimum surface temperature of Planet Earth, and what should be the optimum level of CO₂ to ensure that our plant is the greenest, and most beneficial for life and diversity that it can possibly be? These are the questions that no environmentalists will answer, partly because before they got hysterical about global warming, they got equally hysterical about global cooling. And at the centre of both was one man: Stephen Schneider.