I was asked
to make a blog post on warming global temperatures, and why it might be
happening. I’m a meteorologist not a climatologist, but to most people I’m the
only scientist they know, so I get asked about the climate change debate a
lot. Climate Science is a little out of
my wheelhouse. But I have a decent understanding of it, so I feel comfortable with
the subject. I don’t often post about global warming. But when asked about the
subject; I will discuss the issue and what I believe to be true. Weather and
climate are two different subjects, but they are related. Climate is the result
of short-term weather events average over a very long time. There are two sides in the climate change
debate, those who believe humans are the primary cause, and those to think the
primary cause is cyclical patterns and variations. Which side is right is still
in debate? IMO, there is no proven science as of yet, only theories. I think
we’re still 8-15 years away from having enough facts to determine who is right.
That would be right around 2030.
There are
those who say global warming is a lie. But that isn’t true. There is plenty of
evidence and data that shows this to be true. There is enough data to support
the idea that greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere is the chief reason.
The question comes down to which greenhouse gas emissions are primarily the
reason. Many on the human caused change side, say carbon dioxide (CO²) is the
main player. Whereas I and others who think as I do, believe the culprit is
water vapor. Many of us have our reasons for supporting one side or the other.
We all look at things in a different way. So, what you might see or believe is
different from what I see and believe. But to get to the bottom of the global
warming debate we have to look at the whole picture and look at everything we
can find. Junk science is on both sides
of the climate chasm. So, we have to step carefully if we don’t’ what to
plummet to the bottom. In order to do that we have to look at the available
evidence and data with an open mind.
This post will try to do that. I will show the reasons for what I
believe to be the case.
Before we
look at now, I want to look to the past.
A look at
the last ice age:
There have
been at least five documented major ice ages during the 4.6 billion years since
the Earth was formed, four that occurred during the Pleistocene Epoch and most
likely many more before humans came on the scene about 2.3 million years ago. The last ice age lasted for 75,000 to 100,000
years. The Earth has been warming since the last ice age, which officially
ended 8,000-12,000 years ago. During the last ice age, a large part of the
northern hemisphere was covered with glaciers, the southern hemisphere wasn’t
impacted as bad but still there is evidence that shows southern South America
and southern Africa we’re dealing with glaciation as well. But the glaciers did not just sit there. There
was a lot of movement over time, and there were about 20 cycles when the
glaciers would advance and retreat as they thawed and refroze.
As the name
implies the overall climate was much colder and drier than it is today. During peak periods with most of the water
frozen, global average temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees C (9 to 18 degrees F)
below today’s temperature averages. How
did the last ice age end? We do know there was a change in the
relative strength of the sun roughly 20,000 years ago due to orbital changes in
Earth’s orbit. Examined sediment cores
around the globe as well as ancient air trapped in Antarctic ice, have found
that CO² led to global warming. It is likely that the waters of the Southern Ocean may
have begun to release carbon dioxide, enough to raise concentrations in the
atmosphere by more than 100 parts per million over millennia—roughly equivalent
to the rise in the last 200 years. This is what likely allowed the ice sheets
to retreat. Leading to the relatively balmy, stable interglacial climate
sometimes called the "long summer" that we now enjoy.
So clearly CO²
can lead to a warming atmosphere. But before y’all say aha. We will have to
look closer.
I’ve seen
where global warming groups talk a lot about the rapid change in temperature
anomalies. They believe humans are the primary reason for the global warming
over the last 100 to 200 years. They cite how global temperatures over the
last 100 years have risen between 0.50- and 0.75-degrees C. The global warming folks
say the reason is for the exponential higher temperature change, is due to
human activities human-generated greenhouse gases, including CO², which they believe is the primary greenhouse gas
responsible for what is going on. That is well and fine. But when questioned
about irregularities in the data. climate scientists seem to want to say the
questioner is asinine and a denier of science. But the truth is there is
uncertainty in both the data about past climate and the current climate models
used to project future climate. CO² isn’t
the only greenhouse gas involved in all of this. We can’t just make
calculations about doubling the amount of CO² in the atmosphere without taking
amplifying or mitigating
effects of all these other factors into the equation.
This is
where I come in:
The historic
record in ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica shows that Earth’s
climate has changed abruptly in the past and that means it could change rapidly
in the future. We can see clear
indications of long-term changes discussed above, with CO²
and proxy temperature changes associated with the last ice age and its
transition into our present interglacial period of warmth. But we can also see
there is a chaotic variation in the pattern. These temperature variations are
very irregular. The unpredictability shows they are not part of the regular
oscillations in the pattern. Rather, they look like rapid, decade-long
transitions between cold and warm climates followed by long interludes in one
of the two states. The best-known example of these events is the Younger Dryas
cooling of about 12,000 years ago, named for arctic wildflower remains
identified in northern European sediments. This event began and ended within a
decade and for its 1000-year duration the North Atlantic region was about 5°C
colder. This tells me, there are processes involved that don’t include just CO².
Most of us would surely agree, that what
happened in the past can occur again. If that is indeed true, then we would
have to agree that changes that happened in the past can occur again, with or
without mankind in the equation. IMO,
yes humans are having an impact on a warming earth. But are we the main or sole
reason? IMO No!
Water Vapor
vs Carbon Dioxide:
As I said
above, I don't believe the Earth warming all because of CO². There are just too
many checks in the climate with destructive interference potential to allow CO²
to have that much complete sway over the entire system.
Many who
don’t buy into the greenhouse warming climate debate, believe the teleconnections
are the reason for the warming. But teleconnections aren’t the root cause of
the warming of the climate. The teleconnections are still there and work the
same way, but we have to adjust and figure in the warming oceans, to reliably
use them. The oceans have warmed since
the last PDO, this is especially true in the arctic. But that has is due to
water vapor not CO².
We can
clearly see when comparing summer and winter temperature anomalies. Because of
the temperature to water vapor mixing ratio relationship, a rise in winter
temperature is linked to the increase in water vapor, due to being a product of
cyclically warm oceans. When we look at the summer temp anomaly, we don’t see
the big spike since it would take a lot more water vapor to bring about warmer
temperature anomalies during the summer. Without the summer spike in
temperature, there is a limit on how much ice can melt overall. If we can see a few winters in a row that
have ice buildup due to a lack of summer melting, we would end up with a
dramatic increase in ice thickness.
Why?
Increased WV raises the base temperature of the planet overall in a distorted
manner
There is no
CO² mixing ratio for the atmosphere. If you can’t construct a mixing ratio
chart, there is no true way to see the exact CO² link. The link between water
vapor and temperature is proven and verifiable, as is the fact that weather
naturally directly responds to it.
There is no
doubt that the Sun is the long-term climate driver, on the scale of centuries
and millennia, on the Earth. But most of the heat comes from the oceans through
the release of water vapor. The oceans contain 99.9% of the energy involved in
the ocean/atmospheric system. The oceans
do release a lot of stored CO²; but they also release the lion’s share of the
atmospheric water vapor. Water vapor is
by far the most abundant and important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, not
CO². The oceans are in the driver seat,
water vapor is directly linked to the natural cyclical processes produced by
the warm oceans.
CO² is only
a little more than 2 PPM higher than last year at this time, much of that
coming from the world’s oceans. Dec. 6, 2021 atmospheric Co2 was at 415.41 ppm,
last year on Dec. 7th it was 413.26 ppm. That is a 1 Year Change of 2.15 ppm (0.52%). The more CO² the
greater the likelihood for a greener Earth, to help take more of it out of the
air.
The current
debate:
Most of the
time when talking about global warming, air temperature is used as the main
metric. But in truth temperature isn’t the greatest metric when it comes measuring
climate. But as I showed above, the saturation mixing ration is much better
because it is much more precise. But that be as it may, the human caused global
warming crowd uses air temperature so for the sake of this post so will I.
Here is a
look at the temperature trends over the last several decades. These do in fact
show the Northern Hemisphere is indeed warming.
While I’m not old enough to have lived through the 1950’s through the 1970’s, many of those who follow me on social media or on this blog are. Those of y’all who are old enough to remember, tell me how winter temperatures have changed, they tell me that back in the day, winter was generally colder, with cold lasting through the heart of winter, winters were much snowier as well. Those who preach at the church of global warming, gloss over a lot of that. Many in the GW crowd, imply that temperatures have been noticeably warming much farther back than the 1980’s. The question is how true is that in reality? We have to remember that there are many degrees (pun intended) when it comes to truth.
Over the last 10 years, every major weather event is labeled as having global warming as the cause. If it’s too cold it’s global warming, if it’s too hot it’s global warming, strong hurricanes making landfall are due to global warming, not enough snow and ice, it’s global warming, too much snow and ice it’s global warming. It’s easy to win and prove your point when you control both sides of the field. A warming planet, does have an impact on weather, take the December 10th -11th tornado outbreak. While climate warming didn’t cause the outbreak, it helped enhance the setup for the potential for stronger tornadoes. This time of year, we’re transitioning to the wintertime pattern, which sees colder air in the mid and upper levels. At the same time, we can have warming in the lower levels, this is especially true for those closer to the Gulf of Mexico. In the case of this outbreak, we had that warm low level flow along with a more vigorous low level jet. All of this was ahead of the strong trough dropping out of the west. This trough tapped into the dry air over the Southwest and Mexico. So as the low cut up toward the north and east, it dragged the strong cold front into the warm moist inflow off the Gulf of Mexico. So, while December outbreaks aren’t unheard of, they are rare. As a result of the dynamics I’ve mentioned, we had the prolific tornado outbreak. With the SST in the Gulf of Mexico, above average, it helped enhance the parameters, leading to the what we saw happen. But before you say…So warming is behind all the severe weather across the planet… there are many instances where we see the warming temperatures have the exact opposite effect; this is very apparent when comparing the last few Atlantic hurricane seasons to the same seasons in the western Pacific. Tropical activity in the western Pacific has been well below average and the storm track as been changed a bit more east . This is a result of the general placement of the cold pool and high pressure to the north.
When we look
at the temperature anomalies in the lower atmosphere over the last several
decades, we can see some interesting things.
We can almost divide that chart between pre-Super El Nino 1997-1998 and post-Super El Nino 1997-1998. Before that El Nino, we went from a mostly cold with some warmth pattern, to on the whole a warm pattern with cold sprinkled in occasionally. The oceans hold an enormous amount of energy. The majority of the Earth’s water vapor and for that matter CO² come out of the Oceans. Until just recently we had 200 years of high solar activity. Before that we had 200 years of general low solar activity. The oceans work on a time scale of decades and centuries. The atmosphere/ocean system takes time to build up to a change. We had strong/super El Nino’s in 1972-1973, 1982 1983, 1997-1998, 2015-2016.
Looking we
can see how after the 1997-1998 El Nino, temperatures spiked, the following La
Nina cooled things off a lot, but not enough. To me it looks like the water
vapor release from the event led to a higher plateau when it came to world
temperatures. We also see the super El Nino of 2015-2016 has resulted in a
similar plateau spike. This all shows that it took a long time for all that
water vapor to be distributed with the atmosphere adapting to the new changes.
The warmer the temperatures get the less temperature increase we see, there is
only so much gas in the tank. So, the
warmer the temperatures get the more energy it takes to keep it there. This is part
of the natural balance the global system is always trying to achieve. So, when
looking at the global temperature anomalies, we see the biggest changes in the
colder and drier parts of the planet. We can see this when looking at the
arctic. During the arctic cooling season, we see the
most warming, whereas, during the arctic warming season we only see slight variations
in temperature rise. This distortion is part of the global system and how it
reacts and adapts to water vapor.
This also shows that up till 20-30 years ago,
winters we’re generally colder. This supports the observations raised by people
back in the 50-70’s that said winters then were quite cold.
So yes,
temperatures are increasing over time, and warming is causing weather to react.
But it is all disproportional, as water vapor distribution is distorted. The
system has a much easier time adapting to warming, than it does to cooling, due
to the natural interference the system has built into it. In spite of what global warming fanatics will
tell you, we haven’t seen a lot of evidence that we have been quickly warming
for the last 125 years. But over the last few decades as water vaper increased
as evidenced by the plateaus shown in the global temperature charts it has. The system
has numerous checks and balances built into it. These are designed to keep things in overall
check. There are limits to how warm it can get. The warmer the temperatures get
the harder it is for the temperatures to become even warmer. If I’m right about
water vapor being the primary greenhouse gas responsible for the warming, there
is a limit to how much people kind can change things all that much. But that doesn’t mean we
shouldn’t try to limit our contributions to a changing climate.