Climate Change-Climate Control
What Do We Know?

Recently, I read an article on climate change and climate control in a scientific journal. The author does some brainstorming on possible means of climate control to counteract the global warming problem. These schemes, if implemented, would cost in the neighborhood of trillions of dollars, his words, not mine. What a neighborhood! Also, one must consider the enormous risks associated with climate control.

As I read the article, I wondered about the state of our knowledge concerning climate change and I wondered how it would be possible to control something as unpredictable as climate. Today, "Global Warming" is a hot media item. Statements are made that cannot be substantiated. Everyone appears to be jumping on the bandwagon.

I became interested in climate change in the past year and reviewed and attempted to analyze the published data. The data indicates that the greenhouse gases (GHG's), consisting of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons, carbon monoxide etc., comprise ~1.04 % of the total atmosphere. Let us look at the following table:

One sees from the data in the table that water vapor is by far the most prevalent greenhouse gas. If one considers one million parts of atmosphere, by volume, water vapor at 10,000 parts per million comprises 1% of the volume. The other GHG's comprise .04% of that volume. Let us look at only the GHG's. In 1860, they comprised a total of 10,289 ppm of the atmospheric volume and in 2000, they comprised a total of 10,372 ppm of the atmospheric volume. Since the industrial revolution began much later than 1860, we can safely say that the 10,289 ppm were from natural sources. Thus, in the worst possible case, the industrial revolution, i.e., the burning of fossil fuels, agriculture, transportation, etal, introduced 83 ppm of CO2, methane and N2O into the atmosphere.

We know that this cannot be totally from the industrial revolution since some of this total must be attributed to population growth and other natural sources. The world population increased from 1.7 billion in 1900 to 6 billion in 2000. However, let us consider the worst case and say that the 83 ppm were all a function of the industrial revolution.

In most discussions of global warming, water vapor is left out of the GHG calculations. Water vapor varies more on a daily basis than the sum total of all the other gases put together. Numbers are bandied about in the literature saying that humans are responsible for 30 %, 40 %, 50 %, 60% of the problem. One needs to ask what these are a percentage of. From above, one can see that the human contribution is a very small number. Leaving out this gas, i.e. water vapor, makes it seem that carbon dioxide is a major contributor. This is not true!

Let us consider the earth's temperature without greenhouse gases. Data indicates that it would be -18 degrees centigrade. With the greenhouse gases, it is +15 degrees centigrade We can see from the data that of this 33 degree centigrade increase, 32.74 degrees centigrade is attributable to water vapor and other natural sources. Thus the industrial revolution, in the worst case, accounts for only an increase of 0.26 degrees centigrade. From above, we can see that some of this increase is caused by the global population growth.

In addition, science has determined that the relationship between CO2 and temperature is not linear. If it were a linear relationship, with today's levels of CO2, the global mean temperature change would be 7.5 degrees centigrade. I performed a correlation analysis of data in the literature for the past 600,000 years. This data gave temperature as a function of CO2. My correlation analysis is shown below. Today's temperature change as a function of the increase in CO2 falls way outside the curve. The red points show where the temperature would be if it correlated with the other data, on a linear basis.



Many of the world scientists do not subscribe to the greenhouse effect theory. There is a growing subscription to the theory that the warming is caused by solar activity, as it was in the past. What we are experiencing today is not new. Climate change has been with us for millions of years.

Based upon my review of the data, the above being only a small portion of a 27 page report, and the fact that we only have a basic rudimentary understanding of climate change and when we consider the political nature of the many media reports, should we now begin to deindustrialize our economy and should we even be thinking seriously of climate control schemes which would cost in the range of trillions of dollars. I don't think so. I think these issues should be given back to the scientific community for considerably more study. Recently China claimed that their policy of one child per household has helped alleviate the global warming problem. Is this were we are headed?

I need to talk a little bit about scientific consensus. Recently, former VP Al Gore published a book on the subject of global warming and starred in a movie, entitled “An Inconvenient Truth”. The message in “An Inconvenient Truth” is: Humans are causing global warming, and the effects are devastating. In the book, Gore uses the term "consensus" many times. While the definition of this term implies general agreement or accord, it does not mean a preponderance of agreement. He uses this term, and the media uses this term, to imply total agreement.

There is a great diversity of opinions on the topic relating to the cause(s) of the observed global warming. There is no such thing as consensus, as implied above, in science. Theories and opinions, pro and con, are encouraged in science. One only has to look in the near past and read historical records of Galileo and Copernicus, see my introduction, to see the sad results of politicians and establishments in their attempt to force consensus. I think when one attempts to force consensus, we should look for their hidden agenda.

I hear and read that the science of global warming is "settled." If this is so, why are scientists still studying climate change? Why are new theories and new data frequently being published? My thinking is that when a branch of science is settled, one does not hear much about it. There is no reason to spend much time on research for settled science.

Having said all of the above, I also believe we should be looking for alternative sources of energy. In doing so, we need to ensure that these sources do not cause more problems than they solve. I haven't seen any data to indicate a level of concern expressed by some politicians and constantly being hammered at us in media reports.

Today, August 10, 2007, I came across some data, from a NASA document, which shows that 1998 was not the hottest year ever, as previously indicated. NASA has made some corrections to their data, as errors were indicated to them. The scientist who pointed out the errors in graphical data generated by NASA scientists Reto Ruedy and James Hansen, was Steve McKintyre. Steve is also the scientist who pointed out the statistical errors made by Dr. Mann in his "Hockey Stick" graph. The data shown in the following graph is the corrected data. It turns out that the warmest year was 1934, not 1998. Looking at the graph, the 1920 to 1940 years show a very similar pattern as the current years. I would like to know what caused the temperature rise in the 1920 to 1940 time period.



This correction puts a new light on the global warming debate. It certainly shows that this science is not "settled" and scientific discourse will ultimately lead to the correct answers. Goodby, scientific consensus. If one desires more information on this subject, google the phrase "1934, the warmest year" and you will find many articles. It turns out that of the 10 warmest years, 4 of them occurred in the 1930s and 3 in the last 10 years.

Today, August 30, 2007, an article on the internet by Michael Asher, on the subject of consensus, indicates that less than half of published scientists endorse the "consensus" view that global warming is primarily man made and will lead to catastophic results.

Again, google -Michael Asher Survey- to access this article.

September 26, 2007: In browsing the internet, I came across several articles pertinent to global warming. The first one was in Investors Business Daily. Click Here to access article. James Hansen, NASA scientist, the same person responsible for errors in processed data on global warming, was funded by a George Soros Group (think moveon.org) to the tune of $720,000 to spread his views on global warning. I question how a government scientist can accept these funds and I question the believability of his motivation and views on global warming.

Also, Al Gore, on global warming, calls for a "Global Marshall Plan." My recollection of the "Marshall Plan" is that the United States funded this plan to the order of billions of dollars. Will Gore's plan also require the United states to fund his global warming plan. I have a problem with people who are the biggest offenders when it comes to wasting energy, lecturing me on saving energy.!!!

October 11, 2007: A London High Court Judge, Mr Justice Burton said former US Vice-President Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, was 'one-sided' and would breach education rules unless accompanied by a warning. He crticized the controversial documentary for being "alarmist" and "exaggerated" and for having political overtones. He stressed the need for balance, presenting both sides of an issue, when showing the documentary to students. The outcome of this judgement requires that before the film is shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that

• The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument.
• If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination.
• The nine inaccuracies, discussed below, have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

The judge found that the documentary had nine significant scientific errors. They deal with sea-level increase, shutting down of the Gulf Stream, Temperature vs CO2 graphs, Polar Bear population, Coral Reefs, snow on Killmanjaro etc. Click here to access this article

In my report on climate change, I took exception to Mr. Gore's assertion that 'any sixth grader could see the correlation' in the curves which the judge was commenting on. The 2 curves appear to rise and fall synchronously. However, there is a cause and effect problem. Mr. Gore's point was that when the levels of CO2 rose, they were accompanied by a corresponding rise in temperature. A close examination of the data indicates that when the temperature rose, it was followed by a corresponding rise in CO2, SOME 800 PLUS YEARS LATER. There is a large difference in these 2 statements! Above, I plotted correlation data, which clearly shows that the present day readings do not correlate at all with the 650,000 year data.

I expect that Mr. Gore will receive the "Nobel Peace' prize tomorrow. For this, I congratulate him. I must say that I don't see that his power point presentation on global warming has anything to do with this prize.

October 25-26, 2007

I have been indoors for the last several days, due to the arrival of some long needed rain. I decided to look at some of the temperature data available, which generally describes the local, country and global temperature situation. There is considerable amount of data available, particularly from the NASA GISS program, Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Before discussing the data, we need to ask some questions.

• How is the data collected?


• What is the quality of the data?


• What is the accuracy of the data?

First, let's look at the gathering phase. A network of temperature stations have been established world-wide. Each station is equipped with instrumentation for determining temperature, housed in an instument enclosure, which protects the instrumentation from the elements, while allowing accurate temperature measurements to be made.

The housing assembly used is called a Stevenson Screen, named after its inventor. A photo of a screen, manufactured by Russell Scientific Instruments, is shown below.

These screens are sited throughout the world. There are 1221 such stations in the United States. Guidelines have been established for siting these screens. They are:

• Class 1 – Flat and horizontal ground surrounded by a clear surface with a slope below 1/3 (<19º). Grass/low vegetation ground cover <10 centimeters high. Sensors located at least 100 meters from artificial heating or reflecting surfaces, such as buildings, concrete surfaces, and parking lots. Far from large bodies of water, except if it is representative of the area, and then located at least 100 meters away. No shading when the sun elevation >3 degrees.


• Class 2 – Same as Class 1 with the following differences. Surrounding Vegetation <25 centimeters. Artificial heating sources within 30m. No shading for a sun elevation >5º.


• Class 3 (error 1ºC) – Same as Class 2, except no artificial heating sources within 10 meters.


• Class 4 (error = 2ºC) – Artificial heating sources <10 meters.


• Class 5 (error = 5ºC) – Temperature sensor located next to/above an artificial heating source, such as a building, roof top, parking lot, or concrete surface.

Our second question involved the quality of the data. From the siting guidelines, we can see that the quality of the data deteriorates quickly for sites in class 3 to class 5. One must also consider the dedication of the data collectors when talking about quality.

Anthony Watts, a retired meteorologist has taken it upon himself to classify many of the U.S. sites into one of the above classes. As of 9/12/07, he and his volunteers have classified 33% of these sites. His results are as follows:

• Class 1----------4%
• Class 2----------9%
• Class 3----------17%
• Class 4----------55%
• Class 5----------15%

Click here for a report of his findings

From his results, one might conclude that the collectors of the data are not all that interested in accuracy, which was our third question. From the articles which I have read, the scientists receiving the data, do attempt to provide corrections based on site locations, site relocations and instrumentation changes. It appears to me that a good amount of guess work must go into these corrections.

One must also consider the accuracy of the instrumentation. I have very little information on the instruments used to measure the weather factors. I can see large errors arising from the reading of analog instruments. Digital instruments should be more accurate. However, one must remember that a given reading of temperature has an uncertainty associated with it. So if I tell you that the temperatute outside is 25 degrees C, I need to tell you what my measurement and reading errors are. More accurately, I need to tell you that the temperature is 25 degrees C +/- the uncertainty, e.g. 25 degrees +/- 3 degrees C, or that the reading falls in a range of 22 degrees C to 28 degrees C. As you can see above, most of the sites are in the Class 4 or 5 category where site errors alone are as high as 5 degrees C without even considering instrumentation errors.

Having described the data collection process from a simplistic point of view, I would have little confidence in the absolute data values. However, the trend, if not the value, might be of interest.

Previously, I ran a plot of the U.S. mean temperature from 1880 to 2006. (See graph above). I took the same data and plotted the 5 year mean values in the same interval.



Looking at the graph, there was a warming trend between the years 1880 and 1900, another warming trend between the years 1930 to 1940 and once again at the present time. In fact, the present day data almost looks like it might want to peak and slope towards cooling temperatures. If I were actively working in this scientific area, I would be looking for the reasons for the warming trends. It would seem that the burning of fossil fuels, the emissions from automobiles and our usage of energy were non factors in the 1880 to 1900 region, and in the 1930 to 1940 region. There were 8000 vehicles registered in 1900, 20 million registered in 1940 and 243 million today. Thus the warming cause was something else and quite possibly that same reason might apply to the present warming trend, not the burning of fossil fuels and automobile emissions. I sure would be curious.

As you look at the above graph, in each of these periods, the media warned us of the disastrous effects of either global warming or global cooling. When the temperatures went down, we were warned of an impending ice age and when the temperature warmed, we were warned of the melting of glaciers, the rising sea levels and all the exaggerations we hear today. Go back into the news archives and you will see all of the reports coinciding with the highs and lows of the graph. They did not just report that the temperature was cooling or warming, they attempted to alarm us with their exaggerated statements.

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