THIS PAGE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED AS THE NEW STATESMAN BLOG IS NOW CLOSED FOR COMMENTS
At 10am this morning, the New Statesman finally closed the Mark Lynas thread on their website after 1715 comments had been added over a period of five months. I don’t know whether this constitutes any kind of a record, but gratitude is certainly due to the editor of of the New Statesman for hosting the discussion so patiently and also for publishing articles from Dr David Whitehouse and Mark Lynas that have created so much interest.
This page is now live, and anyone who would like to continue the discussion here is welcome to do so. I have copied the most recent contributions at the New Statesman as the first comment for the sake of convenience. If you want to refer back to either of the original threads, then you can find them here:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with all 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
Welcome to Harmless Sky, and happy blogging.
(Click the ‘comments’ link below if the input box does not appear)
10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”
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Let’s see if I can try a psychological motivation analysis on Al Gore (or look into my computer-generated ouija-board model) to answer Robin’s questionnaire as I think he would.
Q1 Do you think the world’s temperature has increased over the past one hundred years?
a. Yes
b. No [please exit the survey]?
c. Not sure / don’t know
. A- Yes (my Oscar-winning film, “AIT”, points this out very clearly, so that even a 10-year old schoolchild can grasp the seriousness of the warming we are experiencing).
Q2 Which of the following is closest to your view of how mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions are likely to have affected any such global warming?
a. They were the cause of all or most of it?
b. They made a substantial contribution to it?
c. They made a small contribution to it?
d. They had little or nothing to do with it?
e. I have no view on this
. A- They were the cause of all or most of it?(as my Nobel-Prize winning film has made very clear. Check the 10-year old school children, if you do not believe it.)
Q3 Do you think global warming is likely to continue over the next one hundred years?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Not sure / don’t know
. A – yes (unless we can get cap and trade schemes implemented world-wide ASAP)
Q4 Which of the following is closest to your view of the likely effect on mankind of continued global warming?
a. It will be seriously harmful
b. It will be fairly or slightly harmful
c. It will be not be harmful – and may be slightly beneficial
d. It will be beneficial
e. I have no view on this
.A – it will be seriously harmful (again, time is of the essence to get those cap and trade schemes implemented before it’s too late).
Q5 Do you agree that taking action to reduce global warming should be at or near the top of the priority lists of world governments?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Not sure / don’t know
.A- Yes (especially carbon cap and trade schemes).
Q6 Do you agree that taking action to reduce global warming should be at or near the top of your personal priority list?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Not sure / don’t know
.A -Yes (as long as I can keep “swaning” around the world by jet and cranking out CO emissions from my mansion, while atoning for my carbon fotprint by buying carbon credit indulgances through my carbon credit company).
Max
Hi TonyB,
My wife is a native of Zurich. She knows Fluntern very well, as an up-scale suburb of Zurich. Definitely not the “countryside”, at least since the early 1970s.
She also grew up in a part of Zurich that was once considered the outskirts, but is now in the middle of the city.
Urban sprawl has changed the communities around Zurich as it has many once-rural communities all over the world that have been engulfed by the near-by big cities.
To deny this and its impact on local temperature readings is truly sticking one’s head in the sand.
Regards,
Max
Without knowing the cause of previous warmings and coolings especially the little ice age which lasted for approximately 300 years no one can possibly link CO2 as the driver of the present warming, even the ice cores indicate this is not the case.
I believe the most important question to ask is, WHAT CAUSED THE LITTLE ICE AGE AND WHAT ENDED IT, when we know the answer to that question we will have a better idea than just guess work of what has caused this present warming.
The cause of the LIA is still a topic of debate. Up till now the two most probable hypotheses are related to volcanic eruptions and short cyclical changes in solar irradiance, (back to the sun again), see link below.
http://www.uab.es/servlet/Satellite?cid=1096481466574&pagename=UABDivulga%2FPage%2FTemplatePageDetallArticleInvestigar¶m1=1096481770302
Tambora 1815 was the most powerful eruption in historic time yet its effect was only evident for about two years, the year with no summer was only experienced in Europe. If volcanoes were not the cause of the little ice age this surely only leaves the sun and the correlation is pretty good.
http://www.climate4you.com/ClimateAndVolcanoes.htm#General
Mount Mayon had its most destructive eruption in 1814 + Tambora 1915, didn`t appear to effect the climate much.
Max #2527
Thanks for your reply-that was an inspired guess on my side!!
The first link leads to the Mencken graph with both Hadley and Zurich Fluntern overlaid for comparison. It is very striking how they mirror each other in the spikes of high and low temperatures going back to 1860.
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/zurich_mencken.xls
The second link goes to Zurich Fluntern data only, so it can be seen more clearly. The temperature change since the 1970’s-when you said it had become urbanised- is very striking.
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/zurich_mencken.xls
According to wiki (it does have its uses)
‘An urban heat island (UHI) is a metropolitan area which is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas. The temperature difference usually is larger at night than during the day and larger in winter than in summer, and is most apparent when winds are weak…temperature diference can be up to 2.9 degrees C”
So winter disappears and temperatures generally are higher. As it otherwise mirrors Hadley so well I would suggest the current temperatures would otherwise be more round an average mean of 9 degrees C
I hope this station isn’t included in that farce that is the so called ‘Global temperatures’ figures.
TonyB
Max
Sorry, first link should be http://www.cadenzapress.co.uk/download/combined_mencken.xls
tonyB
Message to bobclive
Welcome back to this site. Your blog raising the question of the cause of the Little Ice Age is very pertinent to the ongoing scientific debate surrounding the AGW hypothesis.
Many years ago I remember reading an article by one of the pioneers in climate science.
In a 1976 article entitled “Do We Face an Ice Age?” by the recently deceased Dr. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin, data were shown that indicated a cooling trend. Dr. Bryson referred to the historical record:
“Climate is always changing. About 1000 B.C., there was a sharp cooling after 5,000 years of climactic optimum. Scandinavian winters became so severe as to inspire legends about the winter – fimbulvetr – that heralded the end of civilization on earth.
By the time of the Roman Empire, world climate was stable again: warm and dry. Then, from A.D. 550 to 800, the climate grew cold. This and other evidence suggested that changing climate might be the cause of many ups and downs in civilization. Could the bitter winters be the cause of the Dark Ages?
After A.D. 800 there was a remarkable warming that restored mild temperatures all the way to Greenland, which probably favored Viking expeditions across the Atlantic.
Then came what is now called the Little Ice Age. Symptoms appeared in Europe in the 13th century and elsewhere soon after. Severe phases followed around 1430 to 1470 and between 1500 and 1700. The Norse colony died out. Chinese farmers abandoned orange growing in the province of Kwangsi. Winters became so severe in Ireland that famine became the norm.
By 1850, the cooling reversed and a warming trend continued until the mid-1940’s. Summer rains came to the Sahel pastures south of the Sahara. The summer monsoon rains seldom failed in India.
Then, after World War II, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere began dropping, recently reaching the level of the late 19th century. Although the mercury drop averaged only 1°C, climatologists warned that another degree or two of cooling could remove Canada from the world list of major grain producers. Temperatures were only 6°C lower during the last ice age.”
Volcanic dust was cited as one major cause of climate shift. Citing Hubert Lamb: “The three coldest winters in recorded English history coincided with three volcanic events: the eruptions of Mt. Asama in Japan and Mt. Skaptar in Iceland (both in 1783), Mt. Tambora in Indonesia (1815) and Krakatoa west of Java (1883).”
“In 1969, the Soviet meteorologist, Mikhail I. Budyko, fed the variable of volcanic dust into his computer. His findings suggested a one percent increase in atmospheric dust could recreate the Little Ice Age, a replay of the cold weather between 1500 and 1850. A 1.5 percent increase, his computer said, could trigger a full-scale ice age.”
Sunspots, recorded in an 11-year half solar cycle, seem to affect earth’s climate as well. Throughout most of what is commonly called the Little Ice Age (1500-1850) the mean solar activity was quite low. Since 1761, eight droughts had occurred in the Midwest at the end of each even-numbered solar half-cycle.
Man-made factors were also cited. Dr. Bryson suggested that “atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by burning of fossil fuels helped cause the warming between 1850 and 1945. At that time, particulate matter from industrial furnaces, slash-and-burn agriculture and other human activities had increased to the point where dust overbalanced the greenhouse effect of CO2 – sending temperatures down.”
The report concluded: “Meanwhile, the bulk of opinion is shifting away from current predictions of an ice age. The growing consensus seems to be that we will continue to experience variable weather.”
Source: FLUOR Magazine, Winter 1976
Note: Dr. Reid A. Bryson was Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography and of Environmental Studies. Senior Scientist, Center for Climatic Research, The Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies (Founding Director), the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Just another opinion on the causes for the LIA back from a recent time when another one seemed imminent.
Regards,
Max
The year without a Summer
http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Calen/Year1816.html
Hey Bob, Welcome Back!
There are also eyewitness accounts of this cold period in North America……..Various other anecdotal evidence from New York City Harbor freezing regularly and the seasonal freezing of rivers (such as the Delaware) that don’t and haven’t frozen in winter with any regularity since George Washington crossed to attack Trenton. The winter at Valley Forge and other accounts of much colder (and warmer) periods have been recorded throughout American history.
These accounts are the last remnants of the Little Ice Age which we have been recovering from since +/- 1850. In the larger context, the world has been recovering from the last Great Ice Age for +/- 12,000 years.
I would argue that “global warming” began about 12,000 years ago. Whether or not the “normal” temperature of the Earth is what it was then, what it is now or somewhere in between is anyone’s guess.
Regardless, it has nothing to do with mankind’s inconsequential emissions of CO2…..there are much stronger, more powerful forces at work, (The massive nuclear furnace at the center of our solar system comes to mind).
As always don`t trust Wiki, temperature difference can be up to 2.9 degrees C.
http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/environment/climate-change/docs/UHI_summary_report.pdf
July 2003 temperatures in central London were between 6-9 degrees higher than recorded in rural locations south of London, that is if you can find any actual rural sites near London or anywhere in central England for that matter.
Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects on Hong Kong.
After analyzing the data, PolyU researchers found that there was an average temperature difference of 7° to 8°C between urban and rural areas in a winter night, and the maximum difference could be as high as 12°C. On a summer night the difference between urban and rural areas was 5° to 6°C.
http://www.polyu.edu.hk/cpa/polyu/hotnews/details_e.php?year=all&news_id=1435
Hello Bob
Totally agree with your comment about wiki (you obviously didn’t read my earlier disparaging post about wiki in general and the keeper of the climate pages William Connelly in particular!!)
Yes our UK weather forecasters regularly say it will be at least 3 or 4 deghres warmer in say London than the rural areas. However I want to be cautious with my estimates so I can be seen to be on the conservative side.
TonyB
tonyB
With regard to the sunspot/temp divergence. As you can see from Lean 2004, temps start to diverge from about 1985. Could this divergence be the release of heat from the oceans that has built up from the 50`s, bearing in mind that TSI has been high and reasonably steady over the last 45 years, the TSI has also been higher over that period than at any time in the last 11,500 years. I believe it does not take a continuing rising heat source to keep temps rising. The heat source was cut off in July 2006, (solar 23 min), the oceans are now cooling.
Help me here.
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/Lean2004.jpg
From the same doc as last graph.
(The Lean study shows the divergence between temperature and TSI over the past 30 years, during which time anthropogenic forcings have unambiguously overwhelmed natural forcings. TSI has increased by a negligible of 0.002 W/m^2 per decade over the past 32 years, while temperatures have increased by 0.18 degrees C per decade over the same period. The hottest year on record in GISS, 2005, and the second hottest year, 2007, both occur near a solar cycle minimum.) I think you can halve the 0.18c of Giss for UHI.
TSI has increased by a negligible of 0.002 W/m^2 per decade over the past 32 years, while temperatures have increased by 0.18 degrees C.
Look how much TSI has increased from 1900 to 1955 and how it has remained at that very high level until solar 23 max. Thats a lot of years with the wick turned right up, oceans releasing access heat and co2.
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2008/05/common-climate-misconceptions-solar-influences-on-global-temperature/
The above is an AGW site which uses the Lean graph.
Hi Bob your #2535 and #2536
As water comprises 70% of the surface of the planet what happens there is obviously vital but the natural cooling and warming cycles of the ocean are still little understood in totality. Does the sun warm the planet which warms the earth which warms the oceans, which drives the warm ocean currents until the natural sun cycles (sun spots?) cause a cooling which reduces temperatures which cools the ocean and changes to cooler currents? What are the other factors involved, or is it as straightforward as that?
This short series of posts from Climate Audit a week or so ago have been bundled together for ease of reading. I make no judgement as to whether the theory is correct or not. Interesting stuff which ties in with your comments-whether it has any merit will come out in the wash.
Post 1 “ Watch this 6 month animation of ocean temps (of course paying attention to the El Nino area along the equator). After it loads, hit faster several times and speed it up as fast as your computer will allow.
You’ll see that the ENSO is a trade wind driven phenomenon. The trades (which blow east to west at the equator) occasionally speed up for sustained periods of time and blow the warm surface waters across the Pacific – and also bring up colder water from below. If sustained over a long enough time, we end up with a La Nina.
If the trades are slowed for sustained periods of time, the surface warms up and we have an El Nino. Why there seems to be longer periods of sustained winds lasting decades or more is not clear but it could even be chance. I don’t think AGW has affected the trade winds.
Watch the animation, in the early part, the trades have almost reversed and the La Nina of 2007 and 2008 ended by May or June. Now however, the trades have picked up again and you can see the “waves” of cold water appearing and being blown across the Pacific. This is a fascinating animation at high speed.
La Nina is coming back.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/anom_anim.html
If you plot the Nino 3.4 region temp anomaly versus the Hadley Centre global temp anomaly, you will see a very scary correlation (with a 3 month lag.) The global temp anomaly = 0.15 times the Nino 3.4 region anomaly (with a 3 month lag). The 1997 El Nino peaked in Nov 1997 with an sea surface anomaly of +2.8C and the Hadley Centre global temp anomaly peaked (its highest ever month of course) in Feb 1998 at +0.749C. Throw in a little global warming of 0.08C per decade along with this formula for the Nino 3.4 region and you have a very good model of global temp anomalies at a monthly level – closer match than any global climate model has ever produced in any event”.
Post 2 “Okay, thanks for the info, I was trying different web hosting sites all day to no avail.
So here it is for 1940 to 2008 on a monthly basis. The correlation coefficient is 0.765 which is either good or bad depending on your perspective but for a monthly data set that includes 725 data points, I think that is pretty good (maybe not scary until you see the chart.)
Data is in the Data spreadsheet and is charted in the Model Chart tab.
I don’t think you can look at the chart and not recognize how important the ENSO anomaly is to global temperatures. Too many of the models are smoothed over a year or over 5 years (60 months?) so that all the individual monthly information is missing.
The ENSO directly impacts global temperatures (with a 3 month lag) almost continuously. I am surprised I have never seen this charted before and I would not interpret the climate as chaotic ever again.
This model is not optimized. One could play with the coefficients to make it a little better. It does go off track by 0.2C to 0.3C for periods of time (although the monthly variation is still preserved) but I’ve noticed that adding the AMO index could probably improve it.
I did this just for myself to show that not accounting for the increased El Ninos of 1986 to 2006 could mask the actual global warming trend (by simple math alone). When the ENSO is accounted for, the best global warming fit is only 0.08C per decade versus the models which predict 0.2C per decade.
Someone else who is better with this kind of analysis should run with it and optimize it.
Try “Click Here to Download” at the bottom of this page”.
http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/ee8a33f896_0.42MB
(There has been no further debate to date)
My comment would be that if Enso is driven by trade winds, would an examination of the records set by such ships as the Cutty Sark and other clippers over a sustained period show a correlation with particularly active Enso and to Temperatures?
I am busy with the co2 side of things at present so don’t intend to follow this through at present, other than seeing if there is any other current information readily available about the relationship between ENSO and trade winds. An interesting area though.
TonyB
Brute
Sorry! Had an accident with the spam filter this morning and I think that a very short comment from you disapeared. Please re-submit.
Carbon crash hits Europe’s emission trading scheme
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24608324-30538,00.html
European Union alters climate plan
BRUSSELS, Nov. 6 (UPI) — Global concern about the ailing economy has led the European Environment Committee to revise its energy package.
The committee announced that it agreed the European Union should revise key clauses in its climate and energy package to adjust for the current financial crisis. The economic slowdown has hurt carbon credit demand and pricing.
Over the past few weeks EU member states have requested permission to make some revisions to protect their economies.
Bulgaria, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Poland have criticized the proposed shift to a pan-European carbon credit auctioning mechanism and have gotten the support of France, Germany and Spain in their efforts to change the planned trading mechanism.
http://soho.esac.esa.int/data/synoptic/sunspots_earth/
Note to TonyB (and JZSmith)
You have been gathering information regarding the correlation (or lack thereof) between atmospheric CO2 concentration and global average temperature.
For an interesting study see:
{http}://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/25/warming-trend-pdo-and-solar-correlate-better-than-co2/
This paper compares the correlation coefficient (R²) between trends in global temperature and in three climate “drivers” over several decades:
· Atmospheric CO2 concentration (Keeling curve)
· Total Solar Irradiance (TSI)
· Pacific Decadal and Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillations (PDO + AMO)
This coefficient gives an idea of how robust a correlation really is. 1.0 is a perfect correlation, while 0 is no correlation. 0.5 or better is seen as “fair”, while around 0.9 or more shows a “good” correlation.
The study shows that CO2 has the poorest correlation (R² = 0.43).
TSI has a better correlation (R² = 0.57).
PDO + AMO has the best correlation (R² = 0.83).
A comparison was made using both Hadley and UAH temperatures over the past decade 1998-2007; it should come to no surprise that this (admittedly short-term) comparison showed no correlation between CO2 and temperature whatsoever (R² = 0.01 – 0.02).
[Had the study included the even colder current year, the correlation coefficient would have been even poorer.]
Regards,
Max
Max
Just noticed your 2542 as I came on to post this so will read and comment on that afterwards
This trade winds business is actually very interesting.The link below gives a very good explanation of the process, in particular I would ask you to open figure 5 (Darwin pressure anomalies)
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/factsheets/elnino/
Then look at my first graph on co2/hadley correlation
http://www.cadenzapress.co.uk/download/mencken.xls
then look at sunspots data;
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/sun/images/sunspot_num_graph_big.jpg
There is an eerie similarity betweeen them all. I am not saying they exactly correlate at this stage but its certainly worth looking at further.
TonyB
Max 2542
Very interesting!
My 2537 said;
“As water comprises 70% of the surface of the planet what happens there is obviously vital but the natural cooling and warming cycles of the ocean are still little understood in totality. Does the sun warm the planet which warms the earth which warms the oceans, which drives the warm ocean currents until the natural sun cycles (sun spots?) cause a cooling which reduces temperatures which cools the ocean and changes to cooler currents? What are the other factors involved, or is it as straightforward as that?”
Is it nearly as simple as that?
Reading Maxs link it is interesting to have come to the same conclusion after arriving from different directions!
Assuming all three sets of data in my last post correlate -and accepting it takes time for currents to change from warm to cool- is this a good proportion of what drives our fluctuating temperatures?
Add in up to 0.60C of a degree difference for carbon induced changes (no matter its source) and we arrive at an interesting position. If the old Victorian Co2 readings are correct the 0.6 of a degree difference between the high and low points of a temperature cycle would seem to mean thats all there is to come from carbon.
This amount is our own best estimate in this forum and the complicated calculations of up to 4.5C degrees-which I’ve never understood- can surely be seen in its rightful context-they are not rooted in reality.
Now I’m always very nervous about basing things on short term data-its why people believe arctic ice melt is ‘unprecedented’. The carbon and Hadley temperatures go back some way and I’m sure I’ve seen records of PDo’s going back to the 17th century-obviously mostly observational in the earlier periods.
I’m going to work on the carbon and sunspots data and their relationship -if any- to my own graph. I will then try to plot Pdos from the Darwin pressure anomalies-unless someone else wants to do this or knows somewhere it has already been done with digital data?
What we all need is a big research grant from someone-anyone know of a source for say £2 million? Of course we’ll have to say its for proving man made climate change!
Any spare grants available from the Welsh assembly TonyN?
TonyB
I’m dialing Algore right now…..
Hi TonyB,
You provided a graph showing the development of average temperature at the Zurich-Fluntern weather station.
From your data, one can observe the same pattern as in the CET data you provided, i.e. multi-decadal warming and cooling trends, which appear to have little to do with global CO2 concentrations (Keeling curve).
The 1910-1950 warming trend of +0.167°C/decade (0.67°C linear warming over period) and the 1950-1970 cooling trend of –0.21°C/decade (0.42°C cooling over period) show similar (if slightly sharper) trends in comparison with the CET record.
The most recent warming period 1970-2005, however, shows a much more rapid rate of increase of +0.532°C/decade (1.86°C warming over period than that shown in the CET record for the same time period (+0.309°C/decade and 1.08°C warming over the period).
Why should this be the case? “Central England” is not that far away from Zurich.
Now I assume that the Hadley Central England Temperature (CET) record is a composite of urban and rural readings, some of which may have been added or removed over the past three and a half centuries. If USA history is any reference, it is generally the rursl stations that have been shut down particularly in the 20th century, while the urban stations have remained in operation.
There is no question that central England has undergone a period of substantial urbanization, particularly since the upswing of the Industrial Revolution and. even more significantly in the past three decades (as an earlier post by TonyN has shown #2464).
It is therefore reasonable to assume that the CET temperature record (in particular the 1970-2005 record) includes some spurious temperature increase that has resulted from the urban heat island (UHI) effect rather than from general global warming.
But can the major difference of 0.21°C/decade between a rapidly growing agglomeration and a composite of rural and urban locations (some rapidly growing, as well) be explained by the UHI effect?
There are numerous studies from all over the world, which confirm that the UHI effect results in a significant upward distortion of temperature readings near large metropolitan agglomerations. I can provide links to at least 30 such studies, but will refrain from doing so now, since they are easily “googled”.
There have been a few feeble attempts to contradict these studies (Parker et al. “calm night/windy night” proxies), which IPCC AR4 used as evidence to support its claim of “less than 0.006°C/decade” UHI distortion, but these have all been shot down.
Other studies made in the USA (by Anthony Watts) show that poor siting of weather stations (near AC exhausts, asphalt parking lots, etc.) also provide localized upward distortion of temperature measurements.
One UHI study equates a change in population of 400,000 with a spurious increase in temperature of 1°C.
Another study made in California shows the impact of urban population on temperature graphically.
{http}://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_Part3_UrbanHeat.htm
Here we see a clear relationship between the decadal rate of temperature increase (over the period 1940-1996) and the population of the counties of California. This shows a 0.17°C/decade difference between the temperature trend for an agglomeration of 100,000 and one of 1,000,000.
A study made for Mexico City shows that urban agglomerations of >1 million show late 20th century warming of 0.57°C per decade, medium size cities of 125 to 700 thousand inhabitants show 0.37°C per decade (a difference of 0.2°C per decade).
{http}://www.ejournal.unam.mx/atm/Vol18-4/ATM18404.pdf
If we compare this to the “world average” of 0.17°C per decade (which, itself, includes a significant UHI distortion), we see that urbanization can significantly distort a temperature record of a single location that is undergoing significant growth.
In 1970 the Zurich agglomeration had a population of 510,000. Today (2007) this is over 1.7 million. This is an increase of 3.3 times.
The above studies show that this urban growth (from 510,000 to 1,700,000 population) has added around 0.2°C per decade to the temperature increase. This is roughly the difference between the decadal rate of increase in Zurich and in CET temperatures over this period, and does not include any added distortion of the 510,000 urban population versus rural records or in the CET record due to urbanization there. The data show that this could represent an additional 0.2°C per decade.
Now to one final point (pardon the length of this post).
Two closely located stations in northern California show the impact of urbanization and poor siting on the temperature record.
The two stations cited by Watts are Orland and Marysville, both near Sacramento, CA.
Orland is well sited near a grassy area, while Marysville is in a rapidly growing urban area, with AC exhausts and an asphalt parking lot next to the temperature sensors.
I took the official GISS records for the two stations (going back to pre-war 1937) to see what the impact of urbanization and poor siting on temperature trends really was.
The curve shows this impact.
{http}://farm4.static.flickr.com/3290/2790438226_7cedf5f551_b.jpg
Again, it shows an impact of around 0.2°C per decade.
Looks like this might help explain what Peter saw as a late 20th century “hockey stick”.
Regards,
Max
Max your 2546
Interesting data-the Parker et al increase of 0.0006C decade change sounds like a computer model, rather than a common sense observation from the real world!
My post 2529 said;
“So winter disappears and temperatures generally are higher. As it otherwise mirrors Hadley so well I would suggest the current temperatures would otherwise be more round an average mean of 9 degrees C
I hope this station isn’t included in that farce that is the so called ‘Global temperatures’ figures.”
I have checked out Hadley in the past-the link below gives their criteria.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/cet.html
Because there is so much interest in them they do try to maintain their consistency-as it is taken from four stations which are ‘reasonably’ free of UHI the figures are pretty good-although they are still adjusted to match ‘historical’ standards-possibly by up to .5C
Certainly there has been nothing like the degree of urbanisation as in Fluntern.
As the two graphs mirror each other so well until the 1970’s I had guessed that UHI was the problem, which is why I emailed you (my 2525 and your reply 2527). My estimate above was that the ‘real’ temperature of Fluntern is currently about 9C. This estimate is taken from reading across the two Hadley spikes on my graph that reached around 10C (either side of 1950) which Fluntern agreed with. The current CET temperatures are around the same as then, so if Fluntern mirrors it, reading across from the Zurich graph from the spikes either side of 1950 the temperature should be around 9C now.
Consequently I intend to rebase the last decade of Fluntern at 9c and 380ppm and reduce the temperatures between now and 1950 proportionately, and see what the previous Co2 levels show.
Hope this sounds logical!
This figure exactly matches with the .2C per decade you mention in your post i.e. a UHI effect over the last 50 years of around 1 degree C
.
TonyB
A message for Robin Guenier and Bob_FJ (I also encourage PeterM to read it)
Both of you have commented on the pragmatic as well as moral reasons for opposing the proposed forced reduction of carbon emissions, particularly on the less developed societies of the world.
Here is a poignant personal view on this by one of the world’s acknowledged top climate experts, Dr. John R. Christy.
This is from his 7 March 2007 testimonial (page 8) to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce.
{http}://www.nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/christy/ChristyJR_07EC-subEAQ_written.pdf
“It disturbs me when I hear that energy and its byproducts such as CO2 are being demonized when in fact they represent the greatest achievement of our society. Where there is no energy, life is brutal and short. When you think about the extra CO2 in the air, think also about an 8-fold increase in the experience of human life.
While preparing this testimony, I was reminded of my missionary experience in Africa. As you know, African women collect firewood each day and carry it home for heating and cooking. This source of energy, inefficient and toxic as it is, kills about 1.6 million women and children each year. When an African woman, carrying 50 pounds of firewood on her back, risks her life by jumping in front of my van in an attempt to force me to give her a lift, I understand the value of energy. You see, what I had in my school van, in terms of the amount of gasoline I could hold in my cupped hands, could move her and her 50 pounds of firewood 2 or 3 miles down the road to her home. I now know what an astounding benefit and blessing energy is … and to what extent she and her people would go to acquire it. Energy demand will grow because it makes life less brutal and less short.”
Everyone should read this testimony, especially the sanctimonious (but self-serving) “saviors of the planet”, such as James E. Hansen and Al Gore.
Max
Sorry. Link to Christ[y] testimony (2548) should be:
{http}://www.nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/christy/ChristyJR_07EC_subEAQ_written.pdf
TonyN: Was that a typo?
Max & TonyB
A lot of this could probably be described as ‘urbanisation lite’, with what used to be known as market towns becoming minor conurbations, and large villages become greatly enlarged dormitory settlements.
I have some notes on the CET, and if the following is of any interest to you I will try and find them.
Philip Eden, now a vice-president of the Royal Meteorological Society, used to be rather sceptical and was concerned that, when CRU took over the CET after Manley’s death, the homogeneity of the series was lost. They moved some of the data collection points and he tried to reconstruct the series using data from the original sites.
Quite recently, the Malvern station was moved to Pershore, both places that I pass through regularly. There is a paper which describes how the adjustments to the data set were calculated at that time. About the same time, there was some interesting discussion at CA (including Anthony Watts I think, who had just started his investigation of USHCN sites) about the dramatic effect that moving a weather station from one river valley to another could have on data, even if the distance was short. Malvern (Teme Valley) was once a market town, but is now a part of the Worcester conurbation, and Pershore (Avon Valley) is still pretty rural. I never managed to find out where the weather station is sited in Pershore, bit if it is at the horticultural college, which would seem likely, that is quite rural – just outside the town – but with plenty of nice warm greenhouses.
If any of this is of interest, I’ll try and dig my notes out and pass them on.