It was all over local radio here in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, this morning … that it was the coldest May morning ever, with temperatures down to -2C. That’s cold for subtropical Brisbane.
As I sat shivering in my little wooden house with no central heating or insulation, I was trying to reconcile this one off measurement and the colour of my hands, with new information on the Bureau of Meterology (BOM) website that says global warming is real, is here now, and that on average its a whole degree warmer in Australia.
Indeed, according to the Bureau:
“Australia and the globe are experiencing rapid climate change. Since the middle of the 20th century, Australian temperatures have, on average, risen by about 1°C with an increase in the frequency of heatwaves and a decrease in the numbers of frosts and cold days.”
But what is perhaps more interesting than this cold May morning in this world of global warming, is that most of the rest of the world has on average, according to NASA, only warmed by 0.6C over the last 30 years or so. I thought the IPCC models said that it was going to get warmer on average in the northern hemisphere before it got warmer down here?
I’ve just found that comment from Gavin at an earlier thread which I interpreted, along with figure 18, to mean it should, in general, not warm as much here in Australia, as it will in the rest of the world, at least not for the moment:
“The basic mistake is to assume that hemispheric temperatures follow hemispheric forcings proportionately. This is incorrect. The biggest factor is the amount of oceans and the effective mixing depths in the southern oceans. This gives a much larger effective heat capacity in the south and so in any transient case the warming is always delayed in the south. This is actually exactly what climate models show. See http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/notyet/2005_submitted_Hansen_etal_1.pdf
(fig 18 for instance).”
In summary, according to the models from our best scientists it is going to get warmer on average in the northern hemisphere before it gets warmer in the southern hemisphere, but according to the Australian Bureau of Meterology (BOM) its a whole degree on average warmer here in Australia in the southern hemisphere when, on average, its only 0.6C warmer over the whole world.
And I just wish it would warm up a bit, today, here in Brisbane.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The UK weather isn’t much fun either at the moment- I woke up to 4C on 23rd May. Anyway, in our 2 long temperature series, Armagh Observatory and Hadley CET, annual mean temperatures peaked in 1997 and 1999 repectively, if my memory serves me correctly.
The Bureau of Met is showing signs of being as selective as CSIRO. Neither of them seems willing to admit that a recent spate of El Ninos has (a) boosted the temperature trend and (b) reduced the rainfall trend.
I’d like both of them to subtract the effects of these El Ninos and recalculate the trends or, at the very least, explain clearly why they refuse to do that.
PS. That paper of Hansen’s is amazing. It took 47 authors to write 74 pages. Is this a record?
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ex/0406031 is an eight-page preprint with about 350 “authors”. It reports an experiment in high-energy physics, and while an extreme example, it’s by no means atypical for that milieu. I also see some biology papers (e.g. genome sequencing) creeping up towards similar author-to-page ratios. It’s what happens when everyone in a Big Science collaboration gets their name on the paper.
Jennifer,
whilst I’m most sympathetic to your tale of woe, I am obliged to point out your substantive argument requires refinement. For a start, you might want to make sure you’re comparing change-in-temperature numbers over the same time period. Presumably, the Australian number you quote – 1C – is measured over 55 years (“since the middle of century”), whereas your global number – 0.6C – is measured over just 30 years.
Of course I can’t say whether this, by itself, explains the apparent discrepancy. However, it does suggest that your underlying assumption – that the evidence seems to show the present climate models are wrong – is itself wrong.
Hi Sean,
This is a blog, and posts sometimes represent works in progress… and I was hoping that others might help with the refinement of the argument? I am simply quoting the generally quoted time frames and figures that do more-or-less coincide.
Given the confidence in the models, should a few years make such a difference here and there … do they make such a difference here and there?
Sean – “Presumably, the Australian number you quote – 1C – is measured over 55 years (“since the middle of century”), whereas your global number – 0.6C – is measured over just 30 years.”
The global surface temperature record stretches back to 1870 so where does the 30 year bit come from?
Hi Ender,
NASA talk about 0.6 over the last 30 years and 0.8 degrees over the longer time frame – perhaps since 1870. I’ve been lazy and not provided the link, but it is somewhere at this blog, somewhere amongst all the text.
Here’s the link:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2_lrg.gif
The general description is up .4 til 1940, down .2 to 1970, up .6 since. For a total rise of .8 over around 100 yrs.
Jennifer, while I commend you for learning that warming in the south is not necessarily going to be the same as in the north, you can not assume that warming will be the same across the entire southern hemisphere either. Australia is projected to warm more than the average in the south.
That Hansen et al paper mentioned has some good graphics showing regional anomalies.
Sorry to hear it was so cold at your place, but try to remember that the temperature at a given place at a given time is weather, it is not an indicator of climate much less climate change.
“This is a blog” is not a very compelling excuse for being misleading, even if it were unintentional.
Coby
So where on earth is it going to get cold? 🙂
And I didn’t see Australia as particularly warm relative to the rest of the southern hemisphere in that graph 18?
And dear-oh dear, still not trying to mislead you… I just don’t accept that its as ‘neat and tidy’ as you suggest.
Hi Jennifer,
I think as coby has pointed out, change in temperature numbers are sensitive to start and end dates. Therefore, in answer to you question, “should a few years make such a difference here and there”, yes, depending on the dates chosen, I believe it will.
This of course goes to the notion of ‘cherry-picking’ timeframes simply to suit one’s preferred outcome. I’m not saying that this is what you have done or that this practise is necessarily a problem exclusive to one side of the debate. However, it is important that we remain mindful of this potential problem.
Your blog entry also highlights the need for careful analysis, which is why it was nice to see you go back to the data and for you to allow informed voices of dissent, such as coby’s, and even uninformed voices, such as mine, a right of reply.
Also the northern hemisphere has a greater land mass than the southern hemisphere & land masses will warm quicker than the oceans – so I think that the rate of warming would most likely be land mass of Australia > Northern Hemisphere > Southern Hemisphere.
And yes, the starting point of your measurements will make a difference.
“where will it get cold?”
Oh, I think we still have a few millenia before you don’t need your woolies in antarctica! 🙂
Climate is ALWAYS changing, has always been changing and only ever has offered PERSISTENCE of ‘situation’. Glaciers have been melting for 20,000 years, that is how the last Glaciation Event was reverted and this process is still proceeding. Notice the time frame in thousands of years also… Temperature is rising naturally in response to natural climate processes that are actually present. With the FIRST intelligible meteorological records dating from the late 1600’s and reproducible temperature measure from the 1720’s, there is little that can be validly made of median ‘temperature’ trends with regard to climate, even to understanding WHY such trends are at all relevant TO climate and if so in what manner, within the 1000’s of years these REAL climate processes generally move within.
Sea levels have been rising in IRREGULAR manner for near 20,000 years; whilst glaciers have been melting for that period also as the Ice point altitude rises through the atmosphere. Presently permanent ice needs to remain above ~2500 metres to remain ‘permanent’; ~20,000 years ago this altitude could have been as low as ~1500 metres.
There is no regular periodicity in climate and if one observes the passage of Climate into those Periods where recurring glaciations are present it is obvious this is the situation.
(See slide of Glaciation Periods in http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/348 ) (*)
There is nothing in reality to be cited indicating that natural climate processes are being unnaturally altered, inferences of such are confusing weather patterning alterations from Human produced surface alterations with the expected alterations of overall climate within the present Period.
The weather patterning is being unnaturally affected by Humanities alterations to the surface, in turn inducing redistributions of kinetic energy induction both in rate and in region. This is shifting observation of weather patterning along with the resultant effects of such ‘weather’, rainfall etc. In Australia this is accentuated by the drought effect on natural terrain surfacing. The ‘concrete jungle’ is in reality behaved more like a ‘concrete desert’.
There is nothing to link the last ~3 million years to any period tween NOW and that previous period of known recurring glaciations ending around 250 million years before present. The period between the ‘glaciation containing periods’ was a period where oscillation of Climate was observed as variation of (much higher) sea levels rather than presenting a recurring ‘dip’ into a glaciation event.
The alteration to weather patterning now observed is produced by the redistribution of both rate and region of surface kinetic energy induction from 400 years of rapid Human population growth and habitat sprawl. The charts I mention below show that the ocean temperature rise is following, in a delayed and muted manner, the trend of the land surface in the so far small increase in median temperatures, with an obvious trend linked to Human Population.
See (*) for slides:-
‘Comparison of median surface temperature and Human Population growth.’
and
‘A global median surface temperatures’
The muting of effect is due to the ability of the liquid contained in the ocean to display turbulence. The atmosphere, being a gas, more readily displays alteration to turbulence, which is the reason humanity is observing the alteration to weather patterning and why the Atmosphere is still showing a minimum trend in temperature rise, if any.
There is not infact even any valid ‘historical temperature record’ beyond ~250 years that is made within the requirements of valid SCIENCE. Temperature is linked to Pressure; both via molecular kinetic velocity (i.e. molecular kinetic energy) and that alteration to kinetic energy within a system can be expressed by production of Turbulence rather than measured as alteration to Temperature.
As such, supposed ‘temperature proxies’ are NOT valid references for ‘temperature’ and never have been regardless of ‘climate scientist opinion’, which is NOT a replacement for SCIENCE.
Lastly, to look at supposed ‘greenhouse amplification’, if you notice the plot of atmospheric absorbance within the link: – http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/113579/index.php#comments
-: where you will see that the supposed ‘greenhouse radiation’ is not even seen being surface incident. So there cannot be ‘amplification of warming’ in ANY real and VALID manner.
Infact the platforming of the ‘greenhouse illusion’ is signing us ALL up for Uranium.
To see how, notice the link: – http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,19243237-5001032,00.html
Realise that the limitations on ‘renewables’ is NOT the direct technology but environmental. Notice in the plot of atmospheric absorbance the low energy levels actually surface incident, there is NOT enough energy to make a ‘Solar world’ possible, let alone sustainable…
A Wind farm to ‘replace’ a medium Gas or Coal utility needs around 3200 sq kilometres (of usually pristine land), but to FUNCTION in place of that medium utility will need to produce peak load from 24/7/356 (with a few days below peak expected for maintenance), which is NOT realistic to expect even is WIND is noted.
As such there is NOT real a supposed ‘greenhouse effect’ in any manner and as such there is NOT produced a ‘greenhouse warming effect’ NOR can there be shown to be ‘unnatural alteration’ to natural climate change that is shown in valid SCIENCE or even in observation. All that IS being produced is the short path to URANIUM fuel.
(PS:- Realise that the IPCC is but a political committee formed by a political lobby that platforms the opinion of the lobby that formed the IPCC, there is little valid SCIENCE within the opinions of the IPCC and little observed link to such IPCC opinion and the REALITY of climate as it exists, and to the real properties of the materials such IPCC opinions attempt to involve, e.g. CO2.)
Your’s, Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
(there seems no way to format this post if the preview is correct..)
It always amuses me when so-called experts say that climate is not weather and that weather events are not climate related but are quick to link individual weather events as evidence of climate…and further evidence of climate change is obtained from records compiled by squinting at thermometers by candlelight and comparing them with modern day satellite measurements.
Is this a case of Alicelooking through the Looking Glass?
It is NOT that ‘measuring temperature’ is at all the issue, nor is the issue ‘accuracy’ either. HOWEVER, the need is/was to make REPRODUCABLE measures, and early existing DEVICES could not be suitably CALIBRATED. This is what ‘drove’ the development of these measuring devices, the need for the ABILITY to consistently MEASURE in a reproducible manner LIMITED ALL SCIENCE, and still does.
As a short and partial history, notice words in CAPS or tween *** please —–
[“… The earliest devices used to measure the temperature were called thermoscopes, consisted of a glass bulb having a long tube extending downward into a container of colored water.
SOME of the air in the bulb was expelled before placing it in the liquid, causing the liquid to rise into the tube.
As the REMAINING air in the bulb was heated or cooled, the level of the liquid in the tube would vary reflecting the change in the air temperature.
An engraved scale on the tube allowed for a QUANTITATIVE measure of the fluctuations.
— — 1664, Robert Hook used a red dye in the alcohol. Every ‘degree’ represented an EQUAL increment of volume equivalent to about 1/500 part of the volume of the thermometer liquid, needed only one fixed point. Hook’s original thermometer became known as the standard of Gresham College and was used by the Royal Society until 1709.
***The FIRST intelligible meteorological records used this scale***.
— — 1724, Gabriel Fahrenheit (an instrument maker) used mercury as the thermometric liquid.
*** Mercury’s thermal expansion is large and fairly uniform, it does not adhere to the glass, and it remains a liquid over a wide range of temperatures. Its silvery appearance makes it easy to read. ***
Fahrenheit described how he calibrated the scale of his mercury thermometer:
[“placing the thermometer in a mixture of sal ammoniac or sea salt, ice, and water a point on the scale will be found which is denoted as zero. A second point is obtained if the same mixture is used without salt. Denote this position as 30. A third point, designated as 96, is obtained if the thermometer is placed in the mouth so as to acquire the heat of a healthy man.”] (D. G. Fahrenheit,Phil. Trans. (London) 33, 78, 1724)” …….”]
—– There is more to the ‘history’ but the needed DETAIL is already seen here, having NO ABILITY to consistently MEASURE in a reproducible manner LIMITED ALL SCIENCE, and still does. So ‘timeframes’ are limited to only ~250 years to be within any period where SCIENCE can obtain validatable data.
Realise also that Temperature is linked to Pressure; both via molecular kinetic velocity (i.e. molecular kinetic energy) and that alterations to kinetic energy of a system can be expressed by production of Turbulence, rather than measured as alteration to Temperature. This restricts any valid use of ASSUMED ‘temperature proxies’ as these cannot be representative of the SYSTEM that ‘climate’ is the observed outcome of.
Infact, the greenhouse platform has little valid data that can support the opinions so loudly platformed, and certainly the actual behaviors of the materials involved do not even support the platforming of a supposed ‘greenhouse effect’.
There is more than ‘a lack of evidence’ that the ‘greenhouse platform’ attempts to avoid noticing, there is the total lack of ABILITY by the materials the ‘greenhouse theory’ attempts to involve to produce any supposed ‘greenhouse effect’. The entire ‘rational’ of the ‘greenhouse platform’ is to point to rising temperature, whilst looking around the labels so attached of ‘the false positive’, and continuing not to notice the extent that humanity has rematerialed the surface.
This rematerialing is obviously much more involving of surface region than the ‘greenhouse platformers’ like mentioned, see link (*) for graphs.
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/113579/index.php#comments (*)
Your’s,
Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
(.. still seems no way to format text ..)
rog – “and further evidence of climate change is obtained from records compiled by squinting at thermometers by candlelight and comparing them with modern day satellite measurements.”
So what you are saying is that satellites use different measurements of temperature??????
rog,
Climate is the statistics of weather. It is made up of all the measurements of single events and single temperature readings.
People should not try to claim, on either side of this issue, that a particular high or low record is *proof* of anything.
However, in the presence of a warming trend, well supported by proper statistical analysis and coroborated by many and varied indicators (ie ice melt, boreholes, proxies, earlier springs) it is not unreasonable to note the *frequency* of record breaking events as one would expect more record highs.
For example, 2005 was a record high year globally according to NASA GISS analysis ( http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2_lrg.gif ) and this is notable as further confirmation of a pattern – ie 5 new record highs in the last 25 years. A record low year globally at this point would be extremely surprising and undoubtably very significant.
But one day, in one location does not contain any statistically significant information for either side of the debate.
I am puzzled as to why Jennifer is perplexed by all of this. The Southern Hemisphere is a big place and Australia is just a small part of it. If I remember correctly, Australia is only about 3-4% of the world’s landmass.
Presumably Jennifer is also aware that most of the globe, and indeed the southern hemisphere, is ocean and that there is an anticipated and observed differential in ocean vis-a-vis land mass warming.
I may add a specific note here from Perth, Western Australia.
3 days ago the climate was warm and somewhat barmy – outside temperatures averaging 19 to 20 Celsius. May 23 2006 for those interested.
Then overnight the temperature dropped by some 4 degrees Celsius. Not a gradual decline but as a somewhat precipitious drop. One day warm, the next day cold.
Such drastic temperature drops cannot be explained by any extant climate model which leads me, the scientist to consider the heresy that we don’t really understand climate at all.
I am puzzled as to why Jennifer is perplexed by all of this. The Southern Hemisphere is a big place and Australia is just a small part of it. If I remember correctly, Australia is only about 3-4% of the world’s landmass.
Presumably Jennifer is also aware that most of the globe, and indeed the southern hemisphere, is ocean and that there is an anticipated and observed differential in ocean vis-a-vis land mass warming.
Coby,
Climate is defined as weather summarised over a 30 year period.
Hi Louis,
Yes, climate is a summary of weather and yes 30 years is a common benchmark. So if you know this, why in the world do you expect a climate model to tell you why it got cold so suddenly at your house? One day is .009% of the time period required by the definition you have supplied.
Rember a cold snap is just a good demonstrtion that the laws of physics are working well. Cold during a warming phase could originate from 2 causes that I know of. (1) dry air low in water vapour as was the case in Brisbane allows rapid escape of long wave infra red and maximum rate of cooling at night. (2) circulation patterns moving air from colder regions.
If we are getting unusual amounts of either dry or cold air then this may indicate changes in global circulation paterns impacting on regional climates, indeed ozone hole effects are believed to be causing significant changes in shouthern hemisphere circulation paterns. Regional trends can be different to global or continental trends and could be expected as part of climate change.
Coby,
Climate is, under existing definitions, as the average over 30 years.
Except no one has explicitly defined climate in terms of some measurement.
Principally because no one can.
That is YOUR problem.
Coby,
I read from your previous posts that you are another guvmint source. Like Phil Done.
You will be treated in a like manner.
Louis wrote: “3 days ago the climate was warm and somewhat barmy”
Global warming may well make the weather go barmy, but what made your temperature drop was probably a cold front.
Gareth,
which have been included in the GCM’s ?
No Louis, not gov’t, sorry. Seems your skill at ad hom is on a par with your logic skills.
Coby
“not gov’t” ?
Who mentioned government?
So whose logical skills have to be questioned.
Adelaide has just had the lowest May average minimum temperature for over 100 years. I thought this sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen any more?
Coby,
or is it Phil Done?
Louis you’re not fooling anyone but yrself.
guvmint, not govt?
eeejit, not idiot?
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