Certain
Temperature and CO2 Gradients Were Required For IPCC >90% Human Caused Conclusion
Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
The
complex nature of the climate system makes connecting dots very difficult.
However,
every child knows the picture doesn’t emerge until you do. In climate science
connecting dots is complicated by the dominance of individual climate science
specialists in government and on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC). They control and produce official science. It is a controlled and deliberate
example of E. R Beadle’s observation that,
“Half
the work that is done in the world is to make things appear what they are
not.”
Usually,
the climate science dots don’t connect because of illogical assumptions and inadequate
or manipulated data. Inaccurate predictions
are the manifestation of the problems. It is time to re-examine the larger
picture, to look at apparently incongruent issues, such as the 2007 IPCC claim that >90 percent of the global warming
since approximately 1950 is due to human CO2. It is illogical on its face. The
claim only holds with the gradient they created for temperature and CO2 curves.
Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the
mid-20th century is very likely (>90%) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG
concentrations. It is likely
that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years
averaged over each continent (except Antarctica).
Why would such a minute fraction of an enormous system suddenly have
such a huge influence in the mid 1950s? The claim amounts to a very large change
in a decade. Why would a fractional increase in atmospheric CO2 cause the
change, when the temperature increase from doubling or tripling CO2
concentration, is fractional? How can there be such certainty, when the annual
human portion of atmospheric CO2 figures, produced by the IPCC, is within the
error range of two natural sources, oceans and rotting vegetation? Besides, how
are the figures so certain, when Antarctica, a massive continent with enormous
influence on global temperature, is omitted? Consider, alone, the change in total
Earth albedo triggered by a poleward, extension of the sea ice by a couple of
degrees of latitude. Over a century ago, speculation suggested a 10° latitude
expansion of that ice may have triggered the last Ice Age.
Adjusting
the Historic Record
In an apparently disconnected dot, national
weather agencies are ‘adjusting’ the historic temperature record. Why? In every
case, the temperature record is adjusted to lower historic temperatures. The
apparent answer is to achieve a specific result. It is part of a pattern the IPCC
created when they chose to prove rather than disprove the hypothesis that human
CO2 was causing global warming. Every move involved ‘proving’, today is the
warmest in history and temperatures and CO2 levels have risen significantly
since pre-industrial times.
Results of adjustments for New Zealand,
illustrated in Figure 1, triggered a lawsuit in New Zealand.
Similar adjustments by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM)
were given headlines with Jennifer
Marohasy’s revelations. There is little or no valid reason for making these
adjustments, as we learned from the
BOM response.
“The
BOM has ignored or circumvented all these, refusing to explain why individual
stations were adjusted in detail.”
Why did the BOM refuse to provide answers? Why do all the changes
follow the same pattern of creating an increase in the temperature gradient? The
answer appears to be inferred in this
statement.
The
IPCC has drawn attention to an apparent leveling-off of globally-averaged
temperatures over the past 15 years or so. Measuring the duration of the hiatus
has implications for determining if the underlying trend has changed, and for
evaluating climate models.
The
key challenge is this: convincing attribution of ‘more than half’ of the
recent warming to humans requires understanding natural variability and
rejecting natural variability as a predominant explanation for the
overall century scale warming and also the warming in the latter half of the
20th century. Global climate models and tree ring based proxy
reconstructions are not fit for this purpose.
Part of the IPCC claim results from the limited definition of
climate change to human causes, created by the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Most of the claim is a result of the
database created to prove the hypothesis. The claim is only valid because of
the gradients the IPCC and its authors established for temperature and CO2. The
>90 percent, due to humans claim, is invalid without the increased gradient.
It Has Gone
On From The Start
These manipulations of curves and gradients began with the need to
show pre-industrial temperatures and CO2 levels were lower than today. After
that they needed to create a constantly increasing, significant, upward trend
of temperature and CO2. The troublesome Figure
7c in the 1990 IPCC Report that showed a Medieval Warm Period (MWP) warmer
than today, was dealt with by the infamous “hockey stick”. Using tree rings
alone, their models showed declining temperatures in the 20th century.
They hid the decline by unscientifically tacking on a modern temperature record
produced by Phil Jones. This record, of which Jones subsequently lost
the original data, has an error range of ±33%. Despite this they claimed
the increase was beyond
normal.
Those who adjusted the temperature curves were put under
increasing pressure with the advent of satellite measures around the year 2000.
They were attacked almost immediately as unreliable, but are now considered a
better measure because they cover more of the globe than surface stations. What
appears to be deliberate inflation of temperatures, especially by HadCRUT and NASA GISS prior to 2000, was now
challenged. A different approach was required, hence the shift to lowering the
historic temperature record. If you don’t think such coordinated strategy is
possible, consider the planned
series of mini-films prepared by the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO), prior to the Climate Summit in New York, September 23. If you have the
stomach for it, you can watch
the series for yourself.
The
first challenge was to establish a low pre-industrial level of CO2. It was more
important than temperature because warming from the Little Ice Age (LIA) was an
accepted climatological trend. Climatologists became aware of the selection of
CO2 data to establish a low pre-industrial level with publication of Tom
Wigley’s 1983 article “The
pre-industrial carbon dioxide level” in Climatic Change. Wigley
established the low pre-industrial level at 270 ppm in the climate science
community. It paralleled Callendar’s narrow
selection of the same data. Both set the required low pre-industrial
level.
Zbigniew
Jaworowski told a US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation Hearing.
The basis of most of the IPCC conclusions
on anthropogenic causes and on projections of climatic change is the assumption
of low level of CO2 in the pre-industrial atmosphere. This assumption, based on
glaciological studies, is false.”
The notion of low pre-industrial CO2
atmospheric level, based on such poor knowledge, became a widely accepted Holy
Grail of climate warming models. The modelers ignored the evidence from direct
measurements of CO2 in atmospheric air indicating that in 19th century its
average concentration was 335 ppmv.
Jaworowski’s
research was subsequently confirmed by the work of Ernst-Georg Beck. An article
in Energy and Environment examined
the readings in great deal and validated their findings. In a devastating
conclusion Beck states,
Modern greenhouse hypothesis is based on the work of G.S. Callendar
and C.D. Keeling, following S. Arrhenius, as latterly popularized by the IPCC.
Review of available literature raise the question if these authors have
systematically discarded a large number of valid technical papers and older
atmospheric CO2 determinations because
they did not fit their hypothesis? Obviously they use only a few carefully
selected values from the older literature, invariably choosing results that are
consistent with the hypothesis of an induced rise of CO2
in
air caused by the burning of fossil fuel.
So the
pre-industrial level is actually some 65 ppm (335 – 270) higher than the level used in IPCC computer
models. No wonder they are consistently wrong.
Some argue
that the 65 ppm higher level is wrong because it implies the pre-industrial
ocean temperature was approximately the same as today. A warmer ocean absorbs
more CO2 so there should be more CO2 in the atmosphere This supposedly contradicts
the argument that the world has warmed since the nadir of the Little Ice Age
(LIA). It doesn’t, it contradicts the incorrect assumption that CO2 is the
major cause of the warming since pre-industrial times; even the IPCC don’t make
that claim. It also assumes the climate sensitivity, that is how much
temperature increase occurs with increasing CO2, is much greater than claimed.
In fact, the climate sensitivity level has consistently reduced and is close to
approximating zero. The real question is, how can it be positive if, as is the
case in every single record of any duration for any time period, temperature
increases before CO2?
The
importance of Beck’s work is measured by the fierce and personal level of the
attacks. As I wrote in my obituary,
I was flattered when he asked me to review one of his
early papers on the historic pattern of atmospheric CO2 and its relationship to
global warming. I was struck by the precision, detail and perceptiveness of his
work and urged its publication. I also warned him about the personal attacks
and unscientific challenges he could expect. On 6 November 2009 he wrote to me,
“In Germany the situation is
comparable to the times of medieval inquisition.” Fortunately,
he was not deterred. His friend Edgar
Gartner explained Ernst’s contribution in his obituary. “Due to his immense specialized knowledge and his methodical
severity Ernst very promptly noticed numerous inconsistencies in the statements
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC. He considered the
warming of the earth’s atmosphere as a result of a rise of the carbon dioxide
content of the air of approximately 0.03 to 0.04 percent as impossible. And it
doubted that the curve of the CO2 increase noted on the Hawaii volcano Mauna
Loa since 1957/58 could be extrapolated linear back to the 19th
century.” (This
is translated from German).
Attacks came, as expected, from
AGW proponents, but some of the nastier and narrower attacks were from some
professing to be skeptics. Skepticism is critical, but a growing trend among
climate skeptics is attacks with greater and usually unjustified vigor against
those who question skeptical claims. Often, they carve out a skeptical position
and consider it their property and sacrosanct, only they know and understand. They
become as dogmatic as those they claim to challenge. There is no place for ego
in science. As Mary McCarthy said, “In
science, all facts, no matter how trivial or banal, enjoy democratic equality.”
Most of my research has
involved historical sources and data. It also involved comparing historic
records against modern data. It must all be considered and used with extreme
care and awareness of the limitations.
The 19th century CO2 data has many traits that make it a
reasonably reliable source for approximating what was going on with CO2 during
that century. Beck examined and detailed each record with what his friend
described as, his “immense specialized
knowledge and methodical severity…” Here are some reasons for the validity
of Beck’s work on the 19th century data as representative of
atmospheric CO2 levels.
· Mostly scientists produced the data,
although they were then, like Darwin, called naturalists.
· They were trying to determine the
percentage of gases in the atmosphere following Priestley’s
work on oxygen at the end of the 18th century. The first measures of
CO2 began in 1812.
· The objective was pure scientific discovery,
with no thought to future concerns about CO2 as a so-called greenhouse gas.
This, in direct contrast to the deliberately structured and manipulated
instruments and analysis of Mauna Loa.
· The sites and distribution are comparable
to those for temperature for the 19th century and early 20th
century.
· My experience is that the work of historic
record keepers is superior in dedication to detail and integrity of modern,
especially government, keepers. Anthony Watts’ study of modern US weather
stations underscores this.
· The pattern of the plotted data is similar
to other unmodified CO2 records. Figure 3 is very informative because it
contrasts the much-modified artificially smooth ice core record with
atmospheric levels of CO2 from stomata measures.
 |
| Figure 3 |
· There is an obsession with misrepresenting
CO2 distribution in the atmosphere. It extends from the IPCC claim that it is
evenly distributed to the elimination of variability in the layer of air near
the ground. Extremes are removed with no justification and so much data
eliminated that the actual data finally used, bears little or no resemblance to
the raw data or reality.
Those proving the AGW hypothesis
had to produce a smooth, constantly increasing curve, from three sources. They
linked the ice core record to the 19th century data to the Mauna Loa
measures. Ernst-Georg
Beck put them together, (Figure 4), showing how it could only be done with
unjustified assumptions.
 |
| Figure 4 |
Variability is critical but a 70-year smoothing average applied to
the ice core record eliminated extreme readings and a great deal of
information. It means the results are not meaningfully comparable to the short
Mauna Loa record. It is made worse as that record is also smoothed because readings vary up to 600 ppm in the course of
a day; just like the 19th century data. Elimination of high readings
prior to the smoothing makes the loss even greater. The radiative effect of
greenhouse gases doesn’t work to an average. It is in effect all the time
and throughout the entire atmospheric column.
The End Justifies The
Means
The IPCC was set up to prove a very narrow hypothesis. The goal was
to show human produced CO2 was primarily responsible for global warming. Their
claim that >90 of warming from 1950 to the present is due to human CO2, is
only valid with the gradients of the temperature and CO2 curves they created. The
critical portion of this agenda was to show human CO2 was causing temperature
increase in a rapidly increasing, unnatural, trend. Wherever the historic data
did not fit they adjusted it. When they had control of modern data they
adjusted it. Each time they were thwarted, such as with the advent of satellite
temperature data, they introduced another ‘adjustment’. Only a few are capable
of connecting all the dots, when done, the pattern of activities revealed is a grim
picture of manipulating slope and gradient of temperature and CO2 to prove the AGW
hypothesis.
