Dark Avenger and the global warming hoax

The Dark Avenger has popped in wanting to argue global warming, evidently inspired by my anecdotal post regarding Durbin's snow and lowest temperature ever recorded.

Here's what Great Britains' Meterological Office had to say about this:

Anyone who thinks global warming has stopped has their head in the sand. The evidence is clear – the long-term trend in global temperatures is rising, and humans are largely responsible for this rise. Global warming does not mean that each year will be warmer than the last, natural phenomena will mean that some years will be much warmer and others cooler. You only need to look at 1998 to see a record-breaking warm year caused by a very strong El Niño. In the last couple of years, the underlying warming is partially masked caused by a strong La Niña. Despite this, 11 of the last 13 years are the warmest ever recorded.

Average global temperatures are now some 0.75 °C warmer than they were 100 years ago. Since the mid-1970s, the increase in temperature has averaged more than 0.15 °C per decade. This rate of change is very unusual in the context of past changes and much more rapid than the warming at the end of the last ice age. Sea-surface temperatures have warmed slightly less than the global average whilst temperatures over land have warmed at a faster rate of almost 0.3 °C per decade.

Over the last ten years, global temperatures have warmed more slowly than the long-term trend. But this does not mean that global warming has slowed down or even stopped. It is entirely consistent with our understanding of natural fluctuations of the climate within a trend of continued long-term warming.

These natural fluctuations include the El Niño Southern Oscillations (ENSO) in the Pacific Ocean. In El Niño years - those when cold surface water is not apparent in the tropical eastern Pacific - global temperature is considerably warmer than normal. A particularly strong El Niño occurred in 1998 resulting in the warmest year on record across the globe. In La Niña years - when cold water rises to the surface of the Pacific Ocean - temperatures can be considerably colder than normal. Volcanic eruptions can also cause temporary drops in global temperatures because of huge amounts of dust thrown high into the atmosphere that reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface. A La Nina was present throughout 2007 and much of 2008; — despite this temporary cooling, 2008 is still likely to be the seventh warmest on the global record.

Got this from the NOAA website:

NOAA: U.S. Has 39th Warmest August, 22nd Warmest Summer on Record

Global Summer Temperature Was Ninth Warmest, Tenth Warmest August Since Records Began

This June—August 2008 summer season was the 22nd warmest on record for the contiguous United States, according to an analysis by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Also, last month ended as the 39th warmest August for the contiguous United States, based on records dating back to 1895.

The average summer temperature, for the contiguous United States, of 72.7 degrees F is 0.8 degree F above the 20th century average, based on preliminary data. The average August temperature was 73.2 degrees F, which is 0.4 degree above average.

The combined global average land and ocean surface temperature for summer 2008 was the ninth warmest since records began in 1880, and this August was the tenth warmest.

U.S. Temperature Highlights

California had its ninth warmest summer, while New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island had their 8th warmest summers.

The western United States experienced its fourth warmest August on record, with an average temperature of 75.3 degrees F, 2.9 degrees above the 20th century mean.

While temperatures in most western states were above normal in August, temperatures across much of the eastern half of the U.S. were below normal.

Cooler temperatures in the east and warmer temperatures in the western U.S. contributed to a near average national residential energy consumption for August and the summer season. Based on NOAA's Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, temperature-related energy demand was just 3.5 percent below average in August, and 4.2 percent above average for the summer.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, this was written in 2002.

“The Earth's polar regions long have been considered canaries in the coal mine on climate change - the first places to look, many scientists said, to learn whether the planet's temperature is, in fact, rising. Indeed, climate models generally predict that the heating of the atmosphere - precipitated by global warming - will cause the vast layer of ice that covers Antarctica to melt, raising sea levels and changing regional climate patterns by altering ocean currents.
This week, that widely held presumption is being challenged.”

CSM

We now have this.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes:

weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.

Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you'd believe anything.

The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the "urban heat island" effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.

4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.

None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance.

The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician's assertion.

Until now the global warming debate has merely been an academic matter of little interest. Now that it matters, we should debate the causes of global warming.
So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions.

In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn't noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not proved.

If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don't you think we would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now?

The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory.

Link

Well, if it was warming and is now cooling, what is the cause? The sun. You know, that big old orange thing up in the sky. (Yes you readers in Seattle, it does exist.)

There is also another factor. It's called water vapor.

The following was sent by a reader named Jonas. Perhaps he will join in with some additional information.

1. Storage heaters are a better analogy than 'greenhouse' to describe such gases (Heat-Absorption-Retention-Emission) thus 'HARE' is more apposite term.

2. Only 'molecular gases' such as CO2, CH4, H2O (water vapour)have HARE capability (non-molecular ones such as oxygen and nitrogen reflect heat).

3. HARE gases only absorb heat in/from the infrared wavelength. THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT AND SALIENT POINT.

4 Infrared heat/energy in the atmosphere comes from the Sun; the sum total of the energy emitted from the Earth's surface is miniscule compared to that beamed down by Sun; heat from the surface of the Earth will keep on rising until it is expended (oscillated away); the only contribution surface heat can make to the levels of HARE gases is if there is if there are any such gases given off by/in that heat.

5. HARE gases absorb [infrared] energy at differing efficiencies:carbon dioxide has a 8.5 per cent efficiency whereas water vapour's is 37.5 per cent (more than four times that of CO2).

6. Carbon dioxide presently exists in the atmosphere at a concentration of 387ppm; water vapour's is some 20,000ppm, more 50 times that of CO2.

7. The Greenhouse/HARE contribution of CO2 amount to less that half of one per cent of that of water vapour's; expressed as a 12" ruler, CO2 is about 1/16th of an inch whereas water vapour is 11 7/8".

8. Thus it won't make any noticeable difference to temperature of the atmosphere if the level of CO2 was halved, doubled or even trebled.

Confirmation of CO2's irrelevance in determining global temperatures is borne out by the fact than since 1998 - during which time the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen by some 18ppm - temperatures have not only declined by 1 degree C but that since 2006 the rate of this cooling has been accelerating.

Link

In the meantime we are enjoyin the coolness of an early fall. I find that delightful since my utility bill has been jacked by TVA to fight something, global warming, that does not exist.