Hello Jennifer,
Further to recent posts on the need for new perspectives on Global Warming that can only come from revised graphical treatment, I enclose two graphs that provide us with valuable information on the exact nature and threat potential of Global Warming.
The decadal change in the UK between the 1980’s and 1990’s produces a mean change in the order of 0.58C which exceeds the change in global mean temperatures for the past half century.
The mean temperature for 1980-89 was 9.52C while the mean for 1990-99 was 10.10C.
The global mean is made up of a number of such station records and it is important that we examine a station that exceeds the global mean so we can get a better understanding of how and when the actual warming has taken place.
In each decade the monthly maxima and minima are plotted with a decadal mean, maxima and minima value.
[graph changed 29th June 2007 – following discussion and for ease of interpretation – data the same]
The most important thing to note is that most of the temperature increase is observed in the higher minimum monthly values rather than higher monthly maximums. And most of that has been in the winter months. For example, the lowest monthly mean for a February in the 1980’s was -1.1C while the lowest February in the 1990’s was +1.5C, the lowest mean for a December in the 1980’s was 0.3C while the lowest mean for a December in the 1990’s was 2.3C, and the lowest monthly mean for a January in the 1980’s was 0.8C while the lowest mean for a January in the 1990’s was 2.5C. These three months account for 0.525C of the decadal change of 0.58C.
But comparing the two graphs also makes three things very clear. They are;
1. An increase in an annual mean temperature is sourced from changes that take place throughout the year, not just in the form of extreme mid summer temperatures as the climate mafia has encouraged the world to think.
2. Most of the temperature increases that contribute to a higher annual mean temperature are entirely within the normal range, in this case in the UK that is between -1.0C and +19C.
3. Of the 12 monthly maximums and 12 monthly minimums that make up an annual mean temperature figure, only two, the midsummer months, pose any sort of risk of exceeding the values that the full suite of flora and fauna at any given location have already proven they can cope with.
This latter point is critical in the light of the Climate Mafia’s continually repeated claim that small changes to the global mean temperature can have far reaching implications for the biosphere. As can be observed in the UK data sets, the rise in Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer minimum temperatures, and the rise in Autumn, Winter and Spring maximum temperatures, poses zero to minimal threat to any of the flora and fauna species that have experienced those conditions. Indeed, in most cases this is an unambiguous benefit.
And even the threat from the higher midsummer maximums has been overstated for most of the planet. In the case of plant species there is no particular temperature at which an entire forest, species or genotype will suddenly collapse and die. The weaker individuals will die off first and their death will free up soil moisture and nutrients for the remaining ones. The end result will be a slightly lower density of vegetation cover with a slight compositional change in favour of grasses rather than trees in much the same way that composition changes with latitude and rainfall at present.
The same will apply with fauna. The weak will die off first as they already do in drought with a smaller core population that will then breed vigorously in response to the next cyclical change, as they have done for millennia. So next time you hear about “major implications” from minor changes in global mean temperatures, just walk the poor dears slowly through the monthly minimums and maximums that make up an annual mean temperature and ask them which species are put at risk by suffering through a mild winter.
Ian Mott
Australia
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Ian, so are you assuming a uniform distribution of temperature change across the globe? Thats a pretty big assumption and dare I say it an assumption which makes your argument bogus, shonky and any other comparable words available…
You just don’t get it, do you, Ian?
Anthony, Ian is just looking at the UK in the above. I invite a post from you looking at a worse case situation … but with real data for that country/region.
SJT, I think Ian is providing more data to progress your questions/comments from his previous post. Which bits doesn’t he get?
In fact, if you are taking your argument seriously, as opposed to just spreading rubbish for your own amusement, this makes me pretty bloody angry. Actually, it makes me angry either way. Do you seriously buy the argument you are selling here?
If you don’t have anything meaningful to contribute to understanding the impacts of global warming (and its pretty clear you don’t), man indusced or otherwise, just sit on the sidelines, play with excel and stop making it more difficult for average Joe to understand the issues.
Ian should as a duty of care compare his comments to the statistical temperature analyses in the 4AR.
Anthony was correct to point the additional warming in the northern hemisphere.
As I read it the situation with the global diurnal range narrowing is now not the case in recent years. There has been notable changes in the lower percentile ranges of the maximum and minimum distributions which he should inform us about. More notably but not exclusively the lower ends.
But as to the ecological implications, and my school yard joke with Schiller of “name two”. Well ecology can be tricky stuff.
NZ’s Tutatara has temperature dependent sex ratios in egg development. There has been concern whether the population will adapt quickly enough to avoid becoming reproductively extinct. Perhaps we don’t give a rats about boutique DNA such Tutataras as we’re selfish Homo sapiens.
So we then might consider the epizootic of pine beetles munching its way through the north American conifer estate greatly assisted by warming temperatures. Basic facts of insects being poikilotherms with base development temperatures. Day degrees above zero development temperature.
So sequencing of reproduction, physiological thresholds and phenology will change in many ecosystems. What if pollinators are out of sync with flowering plants. How many plants have vernalization mechanisms to synchronise their growth patterns. What is the implication for changing hibernation times.
Given a gradual change perhaps nature can sort these things out. But we’re considering a rapid change in 100 years. A change that won’t be linear. A change that will also move rainfall patterns.
If Ian wants us to take his grade 8 essay seriously he needs to be a lot more scholarly.
Actually he has failed his duty of care to “Dear Reader” by truncating his analysis.
Anthony, your average plodder would have had no problem recognising, by my deliberate selection of a location with a higher than mean global change, that I was most certainly NOT assuming a uniform global change. It is a pity you couldn’t meet that modest expectation, but that is now a matter of public record.
The dearth of substance in both your own and SJT’s response tells it all. But SJT is wrong, I do “get it” that for many people “catastrophic global warming” is an article of faith for which no amount of fact or analysis will shift.
If you would care to come up with the funds to cover my time I will gladly do the same for every decade going back to 1659 to see if any of the change since then could reasonably be classified as catastrophic warming.
Ian Mott – Do actually know the difference between weather and climate – I ask only for information as this post that Jennifer has quite generously posted is unworthy of even you. What were you thinking???
Quite apart from the fact that the change in temperature that is of concern is the GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE not local temperature variations the fact that the global average temperatures increase is within normal temperature extremes does not mean that this will have no effect. You are trying to compare apples with oranges – local month to month variations with a global temperature.
The problem of increasing global temperatures is that it will bring the following possible effects.
1. Greater temperature extremes and less predictable weather – change the frequency of extreme events
2. Change the time of onset of normal local temperature variations.
3. Change the rainfall patterns by changing large scale weather patterns.
1. With climate change the monthly changes far from being -1° to 14° will possibly increase for some regions so that instead of this it could well be for instance -5° to 25° with extreme temperatures of 40° or more. Event like this that used to happen once in a hundred years will start happening perhaps every second year. This will place great strain on flora and fauna more used to benign temperatures and year by year they will become rarer and rarer until, if the extreme weather continues, become extinct in this area. As you can see from heatwaves in Europe that occurred in 2003
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2003-08-14-heat-wave_x.htm
are now happening again just 4 years later
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C06%5C28%5Cstory_28-6-2007_pg7_54
This type of event will become more and more common.
2. Animals in particular rely on seasons happening at the appointed time.
http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2675748.ece
“The findings, published in the journal Current Biology, show the shift in the spring season has been greater in the Arctic than elsewhere in the world. Previous studies have shown that plants in Europe are flowering 2.5 days earlier than a decade ago, whereas globally animal and plants are appearing 5.1 days earlier each decade.”
Season shift is already happening and can place further strain on animal populations. If they are lucky enough they can move to where the seasons suit them, adapt if they are flexible enough or die out. However there are many many isolated pockets of habitats surrounded by humanity that cannot move. The are already under pressure from poaching and habitat destruction so a change in the onset and duration of the seasons can have a devastating effect.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/media/current/extinction.htm
“The study found that 15 to 37% of all species in the regions considered could be driven extinct from the climate change that is likely to occur between now and 2050 (i.e., for mid-range climate warming scenarios). The scientists believe that extinctions due to climate change are also likely to occur elsewhere. “If the projections can be extrapolated globally, and to other groups of land animals and plants, our analyses suggest that well over a million species could be threatened with extinction as a result of climate change,” said lead author Chris Thomas of the University of Leeds, England.”
3. Many areas are watered by rainfall brought by very specific weather patterns. An example is Perth where I live. We get almost all our rainfall from cold fronts that move in from the Indian Ocean in winter time when the high pressure systems move north and allow them in. In summer these Highs push the fronts down so they usually only graze Cape Leewin and the lower South West. It turns out that Perth’s rainfall has decreased 30% in the last 30 years.
http://www.bom.gov.au/inside/eiab/reports/caa03/chapter4/drying_trend_drought_fire.shtml
“The Indian Ocean Climate Initiative (IOCI) is a climate research program established by the Western Australian Government in collaboration with the BMRC and CSIRO to identify the causes of the serious rainfall decreases and the consequential impact on water resources experienced in southwest Western Australia since the 1970s (Figure 4.5). The strategic research program undertaken by IOCI over the last 5 years has improved the understanding of climate variability and trends for southwestern Australia. Research directed at developing inter-seasonal forecasting and better understanding climate variability on longer time-scales became progressively focussed on issues of decadal variability and longer term change because of the dominance of these issues in any analyses of the observed record.”
While the findings of this report could not pin the cause on AGW induced climate change and I am not suggesting that it is, there is sufficient risk that the future will hold even more drops in rainfall as climate change really starts to take hold. Of course it could well reverse the trend however that would mean less rain for the Eastern States if these cold fronts drop all their rain on WA and have none left by the time that pass over the East. The point is that there are many regions that are dependant on seasonal rainfall that can be change with small changes in the global average temperature.
I cannot believe that a person that is so obviously intelligent as yourself can fail to think through the implications and write something that is so obviously wrong and so easily debunked with only a casual glance at google. Do you honestly believe that the ENTIRE globe’s atmosphere changing in temperature by 1° will not have an effect. Think of the energy contained in the billions of tons of gases that make up the atmosphere and the billions of tons of water that make up the coupled oceans that a 1° change represents. Do you think this amount of energy will do nothing???
Ian, you have averaged data from stations across the UK and made extrapolations from this about the impact of global mean temperature change.
Ok, here is an example for the plodders (and you are very much a plodder). What would happen if the top and bottom quarters of the world warmed by 10 degrees, and the middle half dropped by 10?
I can tell you that looking at mean temp change at the equator and extrapolating globally would not tell me squat about the effect of net mean temp change. In the same way, you looking at Uk data and extrapolating globally does not mean squat.
Anyone interested in looking beyond the sandpit should go to http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Jen – this is not about worse case scenarios, this is about Ian putting out material which is blatantly incorrect and a massive oversimplification of the effect global warming may have.
I invite you to comment, for your readers benefit, on the legitimacy of the argument Ian is putting forward here.
We are often dished up the old chestnut about the “implications” for hibernating species but without specifics. So lets take a look, shall we?
For a start, the change in actual lengths of growing seasons have not matched the change in mean temperatures. Note in the graphs how it is mostly the mid-winter months that have delivered the change in mean temperatures while the changes in the transitional months have been smaller and entirely within historical norms.
And even if a winter is cut short by an early spring the early emergence of the hibernating species will be matched by the early emergence of the vegetation they depend upon. And as the animals have spent less time in hibernation their body mass will be higher at the start of the season than would otherwise be the case. And the longer feeding season gives them greater body reserves to take into the next hibernation.
Indeed, the main threat from changes in hibernation periods comes from longer winters for which the animal’s stored body reserves are insufficient to sustain them until the spring arrives. Lets spell this out, ANIMALS DIE FROM LONGER WINTERS, NOT SHORTER ONES.
And note how Luke has assumed that the range of distribution of a species has a single temperature range as well, which, if altered, will be catastrophic. This is plain bollocks. Yes, some species have specific temperature requirements for sex determination but these exist in a variegated landscape. Egg laying species in particular use a mix of exposure and cover to obtain a range of temperatures that enable the continuation of the species. At colder extremes of the temperature range this may involve sunny north facing slopes and low cover while a warmer part of the temperature range may favour sites further around the slope with a touch more shadow and more cover. These currently ebb and flow and an underlying change will simply mean a bit more ebb and a bit less flow until subsequent progeny favour the kind of site that produced them.
For a change to be catastrophic for a species the temperature change must be substantially outside the existing range of variation, not just in the set of mean temperatures, but also within the range of variation found within the existing landscape over which the species is now found.
This is certainly not the case to date. As the UK records are significantly above the global change in mean temperatures then we can state with some certainty that movements elsewhere, and impacts from those movements, have generally been less than what has been shown above.
Once again, when we draw the climate mafia away from their generalised scaremongering into the specifics of their assertions, there is a distinct lack of substance to their claims.
>At colder extremes of the temperature range this may involve sunny north facing slopes and low cover while a warmer part of the temperature range may favour sites further around the slope with a touch more shadow and more cover. These currently ebb and flow and an underlying change will simply mean a bit more ebb and a bit less flow until subsequent progeny favour the kind of site that produced them.
So Ian are you then suggesting that (for example)the Tuatara researchers overlooked this point? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19026872/
What happens if pome fruits do not receive enough cold days? Extrapolate to natural systems.
Would have thought Ian would have counselled us on competence to flower. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernalization
Wonder why the Tuatara sex ratios haven’t ebbed and flowed yet. Probably psyching themselves up for it.
Hmmmm local Aussie software dedicated to predicting distribution of insects by climate. Ex CSIRO Division of Entomology.
http://www.hearne.com.au/products/climex/edition/climex3/
What will climate change mean for fruit fly and cattle tick distribution.
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/commodities/article.jsp?content=20060130_74010_74010
The message that climate change matters now permeates the entire Canadian forest industry, which exports a whopping $40 billion annually. A new study from U.S. forest economists predicts climate change will generate substantial advantages for foresters in tropical regions while Canadian foresters may suffer substantial production losses in the century ahead.
‘Rapid Warming’ Spreads Havoc in Canada’s Forests
Tiny Beetles Destroying Pines
By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 1, 2006; Page A01
QUESNEL, B.C. — Millions of acres of Canada’s lush green forests are turning red in spasms of death. A voracious beetle, whose population has exploded with the warming climate, is killing more trees than wildfires or logging.
The mountain pine beetle has infested an area three times the size of Maryland, devastating swaths of lodgepole pines and reshaping the future of the forest and the communities in it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/28/AR2006022801772.html
Nice try Ender, climate is the sum of weather, always has been. And your post is full of “possibles” but short on actuals. And it is informative that even Ender, when faced with challenging information, resorts to his standard mantra in the hope of reassuring himself.
No amount of spin will alter the fact that an annual mean for any location is the sum of daily and monthly means. Those means take place within a range of outcomes for the same period and those outcomes take place within a context of other periods within the annual periodic range.
And in the UK record above, the range within a monthly mean is in the order of 5C-7C while the annual range in monthly means is 20C. This is in a context of annual daily range of 40C.
These parameters define the inherent inertia in the climatic system. The scarenarios about major shifts in extremes in the order of 5C or even 10C as Anthony, our emmissary from the planet Gonzon, has suggested, are only realistic if the means move to a similar extent, in the same direction.
At this stage even the highly dubious EUPCC scarenarios only predict 1 or 2C change in global mean so to seriously suggest the kind of consistent movements in the existing range of 5C or 10C is pure bunkum.
The graphs highlight the fact that a mean is a bundle of values and a movement in that bundle of values will generally involve all of the values moving in an incremental way rather than a limited number of values moving to extremes.
But the minds of the bimboscenti operate in a well travelled rut of extrapolation to extreme, hence the virulence of their attacks on what is a simple portrayal of data.
You’d think those with forestry interests would be more interested given the pine beetle lesson.
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/fr/INFD-5ZXGXZ
How might climate change affect forest insect pest outbreaks?
“No amount of spin will alter the fact that an annual mean for any location is the sum of daily and monthly means.” – ummm no actually. And calendar arrangements are bad ecologically speaking too.
Gonzos, gormless greens, spivs, scum, and other smart pricks know that you need to model plant water balance on a daily time step, and also model poikilotherm development of a daily time step too. Or your results won’t validate out. It’s the sum total of the daily variation, extremes and limits that determines final outcomes more than averages. All lost on ecological ignorami of course.
Ian stop being such a numb nuts and exercise duty of care to “Dear Reader” here. You’re embarrassing Jen too given she’s got the BIG BSc and PhD in insects/plant interactions. Go on any longer and she’ll have to do ya. Nothing worse than getting shot up by friendly fire.
20. United Kingdom — Toads, frogs, and newts spawning early. Spawning was 9 to 10 days earlier over a 17-year period.
21. United Kingdom — Birds laying eggs early. From 1971 to 1995, 31 percent of 65 bird species studied in England showed significant trends towards earlier egg laying, moving up the date by an average of 8.8 days.
22. Southern England — Early leafing of oak trees. The four earliest leafing dates occurred in the past decade, a response to increasing temperatures during January to March over the past 41 years.
27. Austria — Alpine plants retreat up mountains. Over a 70 to 90 year period, alpine plants in the Austrian and Swiss Alps moved higher up on mountain slopes in response to an increase in average annual temperature.
29. Europe — Butterfly ranges shift northward. 22 of 35 butterfly species studied have shifted their ranges northwards by 22 to 150 miles (35-241 km), consistent with a 1.4F (0.78C) warming over the past century.
37. United Kingdom — Birds shift northward. Over a 20-year period, many birds have extended the northern margins of their ranges by an average of about 12 miles (19 km).
83. Mediterranean — Intense drought and fires. Spain lost more than 1.2 million acres (485,622 hectares) of forest to wildfires in 1994, and 370,000 acres (149,734 hectares) burned in each of Greece and Italy in 1998.
106. The Netherlands – Earlier flight peak of moths. Between 1975 and 1996 the flight peak of small moths shifted to a date 11.6 days earlier. Warmer temperatures promote the earlier appearance of insects and earlier peak flight times.
107. Hungary – Earlier flowering dates. Flowering dates of the locust tree occurred 3-8 days earlier during the period 1983-1994 compared to 1851-1930. The study indicates that a rise in temperature of 1.8F (1C) causes an advanced flowering by 7 days.
108. Europe – Change in timing of spring and autumn events. A study of European plants from 1959 to 1993 shows that spring events (such as flowering) have advanced by about 6 days and autumn events (such as leaf coloring) have been delayed by about 5 days. The plant response occurred during a period of a warming. Annual average temperature over continental Europe has increased 1.4F over the past century.
111. Europe – Earlier growing season. A study of the timing of leaf unfolding for four tree species shows that from 1969 to 1998 the beginning of the growing season has advanced by 8 days. The earlier leaf unfolding corresponds with increasing early spring temperatures over the last 30 years. The greatest warming occurred in Portugal, where average air temperatures in early spring (February to March) increased by nearly 1.1F (0.6C) per decade, and the beginning of the growing season has advanced by about 14 days since 1969.
112. Turku, Finland – Longer growing season. The growing season has lengthened by over 10 days over the last century. Throughout the Nordic region the start of the growing season has become progressively earlier by between 4 and 12 days.
113. England – Earlier first flowering date. One of the most comprehensive studies of plant species in Britain revealed that the average first flowering date of 385 British plant species has advanced by 4.5 days during the past decade compared with the previous four decades: 16% of species flowered significantly earlier in the 1990s than previously, with an average advancement of 15 days in a decade. These data reveal the strongest biological signal yet of climatic change. Flowering is especially sensitive to the temperature in the previous month, and spring-flowering species are most responsive.
118. United Kingdom – British birds extend their ranges northward. A comparison of the breeding distributions of birds for two time periods, 1968-72 and 1988-91, showed that the northern margins for many species had moved northwards by an average of about 12 miles (19 km). The range shift occurred during a period when central Englands temperature warmed by about 0.9F (0.5C) over the last century, and the 10-year period 1988-1997 was the warmest such period in the record.
Ian, at what point did I suggest a 10 degree shift would happen?
If you read my post, you would realise my HYPOTHETICAL scenario pointed out you could have no global mean temp change, but massive swings across regions with drastic effects.
By doing this I am pointing out that extrapolating global outcomes based on locational average temp change is moronic (i.e your post is moronic) unless all locations across the globe warm evenly (BUT THEY DON’T!).
The amount of literature on this, that you have conveniently swept under the carpet is staggering. More staggering is Jen’s silence on the issue.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/
Have a play with this and you can easily see that for years such as 2006, you can get a 4 degree anomoly in parts of the world relative to a baseline of temp averaged over 1950-1980
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2007&month_last=05&sat=4&sst=0&type=anoms&mean_gen=0112&year1=2006&year2=2006&base1=1900&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
In fact, if you look at 2006 relative to the baseline of average temp from 1900-1980, you get 8 degree anomolies in some regions.
Ian Mott – “Nice try Ender, climate is the sum of weather, always has been. And your post is full of “possibles” but short on actuals”
Yes but the long term mean about which the weather varies is of utmost importance.
Lacking a crystal ball of course my post has possibles. This does not mean that we should do nothing. Waiting for absolute proof in this situation simply means that it will be too late to do anything. It is a bit like buying insurance AFTER your house has burnt down in a bushfire because now you have absolute proof that your house can be affected by bushfires.
And now these guys are trying to argue that all change will be massive change. An instance of expanded pest area does not mean an extinction of the host species. It is an incremental change for which strategies will be developed and measures taken.
The predictions were for millions of extinctions. To date we have been offered one, the Tuatara, which has not been substantiated. Don’t beg the question, Luke, you provided the example, you tell us if such matters were considered.
BTW Maryland is only 2.5mha while British Columbia is 92.5mha, three times the area of Maryland sounds dramatic but it is only 7.5mha which still leaves 85mha, mostly of forest, intact. An impact, yes, but far from an extinction. There goes that old extrapolation to extreme problem again, eh.
Shall we do the decadal means for BC too?
>Don’t beg the question, Luke, you provided the example, you tell us if such matters were considered.
You implied that such matters weren’t considered Ian. The tone of your writing, as always, is to imply that researchers don’t know what they are talking about and that hence the Tuatara researchers had not considered details such as mix of substrate, a northerly aspect, etc. Instead of believing that these researchers had taken such things into consideration, you then blame Luke for not providing any supporting evidence to something you presented. You are incredibly good at weasling out of doing any real investigation yourself, but that’s about all you’re good at.
For heavens sake Ian – AGW is just starting. How many billion $ in forests do you want to lose. It’s a very big impact – I didn’t say an extinction. Yes maybe even work arounds (in time!!).
You have to chuck a few more degrees on the BBQ yet.
Ian says “It is an incremental change for which strategies will be developed and measures taken.”
Strategies developed by who, what measures?
I will get to the post 2000 decadal means when we have a decade to deal with. In the mean time there is no escaping the fact that a rise of 0.58C between two decades is a very pronounced change that is in excess of the global mean over the past century. By any measure, the UK data shows a rapid change but closer examination reveals this change to involve few extremes and be almost entirely comprised of records that are well within the historical range of variation.
And note, once again, the list of early starts to growing seasons, measured in terms of a few days when even the most cursory glance at the temperature records reveals numerous instances where the growing season has come early by more than a month.
So we have people rattling off changes detected in a mere 6 year interval and extrapolating from them while ignoring the depth of evidence that such changes are well within the normal range of variation.
For example, over the past century the UK records reveal a decadal range of April mean temps from 7.6C to 9.3C and a decadal range of May mean temps from 10.8C (1900-10) to 12.0C (1910-19) so it is clear that the growing season has always started somewhere near the end of April. But in the 1940’s there were 4 years where the April mean was above 10.0C. The decadal April mean for 1940-49 was 9.3C.
Yet, the seven records for 2000-2006 have an April mean of only 8.8C and a May mean of 12.1C and none of the April means were above 9.6C.
So we have been given substantial anecdotal evidence of earlier onset of growing seasons from 2000-2006 while the April means in the 1940’s were well above the current records. They were;
1943 (10.5C), 1944 (10.2C), 1945 (10.1C), 1946 (9.9C) and 1949 (10.0C).
Clearly, the UK warming is well above the global trend but the claimed portents of catastrophic change, the earlier starts to growing season, are still well within the recent historical norms.
Are there any species that are recorded as being seriously harmed by the early springs of the 1940’s? I think not.
http://www.csiro.au/resources/pfnq.html
anyone interested in effect of warming on Australia can have a quick look over this.
Ian, you still haven’t explained how your Uk case study can be applied globally?
Ian
I could be within historical bounds for travel if I am on top of a rocket, and it’s just taking off. It’s the trend that’s important too. That has been up, and, with the predicted feedback effects happening, it’s going to keep going up.
Means won’t show it to you. For heavens sake.
The UK CET begins in 1659 – during the coldest period of the Little Ice Age. The station has moved, and is in a highly urbanised region.
Our other long temperature series is from the rural Armagh Observatory – plot them against each other and there is a slightly different trend.
I think Steve Milloy discoverd Armagh from a post of mine on Pielke Sr’s blog and promtly produced this:
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Armagh_vs_CET.html
If you’re after anecdotal evidence try the St George’s mushroom:
The St George’s mushroom is so named because in days long gone it could be harvested on the saint’s day, 23rd April. However, a few decades ago, the average fruiting time for this fungus was mid-May. More recently, this has moved forward to 22nd or 23rd April, making the name apt once more. Although reported as a sign of current climate change, the other implication is, of course, that the climate in this country was indeed warmer in centuries gone by. This is further indirect evidence of the Medieval Warm Period (or Medieval Climate Optimum), which was certainly not brought about by profligate use of fossil fuel by industry.
Armagh:
monthly mean maximum here:
http://climate.arm.ac.uk/calibrated/airtemp/TMAXC-MON-C.DAT
monthly mean minimum here:
http://climate.arm.ac.uk/calibrated/airtemp/TMINC-MON-C.DAT
I’m preparing a post on the robustness of global mean near surface temperature data, which looks at the papers the IPCC cherry picked, plus those that they ignored, along with an continuing examination of the stations in the network being undertaken by a meteorologist, with some interesting photos.
Paul, we know about the medievel warm period, we know it wasn’t caused by greenhouse gas emissions. What is your point?
Current warming is very different from the medievel warming period
Ian you doofus. We can have polar bears living on the gold coast, that doesn’t mean they can survive in the wild when the arctic ice melts. Life adapts to it’s niche, optimising it’s exploitation of that niche. Sure, they could adapt over time, but 100 years in evolution is a very short period of time. What they will tend to do is move with the climate. However water can interfere with that, much of the world is now pretty well inhabited or controlled by man. The polar bears will be heading south towards land, just as the brown bears are heading north to cooler weather.
Anthony – we should still be in the LIA then should we? I don’t think so – the warming started well before any significant GHG emissions.
The main potential human influences on climate include: Urbanisiation, land use change, ghg’s, pollution etc. Having an variety of influences of unknown magnitude is not the same as driving climate.
Then plot so far
(1) despite the intial “nothing is affected” bluster the null hypothesis has been inundated by a La Nina of evidence that ecosystems and pests have seen changes
(2) AGW is just starting. Greenhouse warming only kicked in over the last 30 years. So surprising how many effects we’re seeing already. But wait FOR IT ! More to come.
(3) some species will adapt or move – some won’t. Devil is in the details.
(4) using max and mean averages not useful for modelling water balance or poikilotherm development and phenology
(5) surely we can be comfortable with multiple forcings ? Do we have to get into this exclusivity ruse.
(6) IF the surface temperature network is shit well we don’t know whether it’s warming or cooling – can’t have it both ways in different arguments. The surface temperature critics need to dish up a statistical uncertainty analysis of difference – not just the usual “create uncertainty” “gettem worried” bilge. Any mass sampling of the real world will have some dud measurements. Are the duds significant enough to change the story interpretation.
I yearn for the good ole days when Jen’s blog was about science and the environment. Now it’s about politics, anything is admissable incl. Ian mistaking the local for the global.
You claim to be a logical man Ian so how can you have such strong opinions against the science unless you’ve done your homework? If you have, you don’t need to ask for people to pay for your time to answer their reasonable questions. How else did you reach your opinions? If you haven’t done your homework then you’re just full of shit.
You always demand that others defend themselves against your attacks. Commenters here are more polite than your past treatment of them deserves. It’s reasonable that you give direct answers to the questions. Don’t wimp out again.
Paul
the warming you are referring to was at a very slow rate. That is the reason for the alarm, it has now shifted into a rapid rise. For evidence look at the glacier melting rates.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=129
SJT, Luke – you continually fail to establish a link between the enhanced greenhouse effect and climate change, or global warming, or whatever it’s called this week.
Everything you cite has happened before without anthropogenic CO2.
Nir Shaviv has published his work in peer reviewed journals:
“Solar activity has been increasing over the 20th century. Thus, we expect warming from the reduced flux of cosmic rays. Moreover, since the cosmic ray flux actually had a small increase between the 1940’s and 1970’s (as can be seen in the ion chamber data), this mechanism also naturally explains the global temperature decrease which took place during the same period. Using historic variations in climate and the cosmic ray flux, one can actually quantify empirically the relation between cosmic ray flux variations and global temperature change, and estimate the solar contribution to the 20th century warming. This contribution comes out to be 0.5±0.2 C out of the observed 0.6±0.2 C global warming.”
“There are two reasons why the temperature should rise from the 1970s. First, there is a decrease in the average cosmic ray flux*. If we look at the average of each cycle there is an increase in the average cosmic ray flux until about the cycle of 1970, and then a decrease in the following two cycles. The last cycle was not as strong, so the average CRF increased. This can explain why the temperature stopped warming from around 2000.
Second, one has to realize that the temperature response of Earth’s climate is a ‘low pass filter’ due to the high heat capacity of the Oceans. This implies that:
The temperature variations over the 11 year cycle are highly damped (but t hey are there at a level of 0.1 deg).
There is a delay time in the system’s response. This means that the 11-year cycle will lag the solar forcing (and it does by 1-2 years). Over the centennial time scale, the Sun’s activity significantly increased until the middle of the century, then it slightly decreased and somewhat increased from the 1970’s with a peak in 2004. If you pass this behavior through the climate “low pass filter”, you will find that because of Earth’s heat capacity, the temperature at 2000 should be higher than the temperature in 1950’s even if the decrease until the 1970’s is similar to the increase afterwards.”
Disingenuously Luke asks “What happens if pome fruits do not receive enough cold days? Extrapolate to natural systems.”
Why Luke, you just use varieties of pome fruit that requires less chill days and you grow high chill pome fruit in areas previously not suitable to pome fruit, just like nature has always done.
Dont you Luke.
Well Paul there you go with the illogical position of it has to be just one thing. What’s wrong with a number of forcing mechanisms. Even Shaviv will acknowledge some greenhouse influence.
When you get the cloud satellite imagery database sorted let us know. Then it may be time to check out cosmic rays.
And you never have addressed Philipona’s trilogy of papers, Harries, etc. And what’s wrong with RCs latest duo of papers on radiative physics. Actually we never hear much from you on radiation physics at all – moreover correlations which may or may not be spurious are the order of the day.
Well Roggy poggy – that’s because have humans that can rapidly manipulate genetic traits. But how long to get an orchard bearing fruit Rog?
Interesting that clever money is doing the global warming analyses on new olive orchard locations.
In any case the analogy is simply to remind you that a process of vernalization exists in many species. Despite Ian suggesting it’s all upside.
But natural systems need longer periods of time. Hundreds of years – but you don’t have 100s do you Roggy .
And remember your geological record – have major climate change and you do lose lotsa species.
Lukes “clever money” is nothing but a managed investment scheme!
how long to get an orchard bearing fruit? 2/3 years
As Shaviv has shown – climate sensitivity to CO2 is low.
The main evidence against cosmic ray flux was a mechanism – the promising initial small scale experimental result published last year, is being followed by a much bigger one at CERN – to be completed by 2010. I see Svensmark is funded by ‘big lager.’
We may not have any relaible cloud data to provide evidence for or against:
Evan, A.T., A.K. Heidinger and D.J. Vimont, 2007. Arguments against a physical long-term trend in global ISCCP cloud amounts. Geophysical Research Letters, 34:LO4701.
As Shaviv has asserted.
And full production nursery boy? by variety.
Marginally related to the current heated discussion is that the Vostok Ice Core temperature proxies are multimodal. So the science part is clear. There is no central tendency and the fluctuations are bigger than you are talking about here, so there almost surely is not a “climate” in the IPCC sense as a model for behaviour. You are free to choose any group of numbers you want and average them, but it does not thereby become a “climate” or take on properties of convergence in time.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1516#comment-114968
Rog
I think you have hit on the problem. The natural world doens’t have people to manage varieties and propagation and cultivation. It does adapt over time, but the projected rate of change is going to be too rapid. Weeds like poison ivy will be able to take advantage of the situation much more easily.
Readers who weren’t born yesterday will note how the climate fetishists have attempted to obscure a simple truth about the source of past rises in annual mean with a barrage of speculative modelling as to the future sources of rising annual means.
The facts are that recent major increases in the UK Met annual mean temperature were sourced, primarily, from a serious outbreak of mildness, rather than an explosion of extremes. And at this stage there appears to be very few species in the UK that have been adversely affected by these changes.
It should also be noted that an analysis of the sources of change is an integral part of the bundle of reporting obligations that form the core community expectations of Company Reports in every OECD nation. And there is no excuse for failing to hold a UN body like the IPCC to similar reporting obligations. If temperature change is an “essential fact” that is intended to shape policy development then the source of that change also becomes an essential input to the process.
And it is also incumbent on those who have obtained public funding for research into temperature change, or potential temperature change, to maintain a continual reconcilliation of actual sources of temperature change to modelled outcomes to determine when or if the claimed switch from benignly sourced warming to extreme driven warming takes place.
The UKMET data is only a guide at this stage and cannot be used as a surrogate for a proper global sample. But the scale of the decadal change shown above makes it clear that substantial warming can take place without adverse impacts from climate extremes.
And as this sample is so far in excess of the global trend we can reasonably conclude that a majority of global stations will exhibit milder warming trends and a commensurate absence of adverse climate extremes.
The message to the climate mafia is, “when you have evidence of an extreme driven temperature change then, please, present it for all to examine”. Anything less is pure speculation.
Ian continues to ignore 8 degree anomolies in some sections of the world and refuses to address his flawed logic of implying – alls well in the Uk, therefore all will be well everywhere…
carry on Ian, you appear to just be warming up
Yes Ian we’ll tell you when we get to another few degrees warmer. Put your feet up till then and “chill out”.
Ian’s house – slight smell of gas.. .. Oh I’ll just wait till it gets to toxic levels till I turn it off. I’m sure that mercaptan smell isn’t important.
He’s still banging on about means and has missed the point. And it ain’t modelling – it’s called observations.
graph just substituted – simplified – to facilitate understanding – data the same
looks like summer is on the move…and that there is more to warming than an increase in min temps
The new graph makes it much clearer that none of the 0.58C increase in this series of regional mean temperatures has involved new extremes. The summer peak came later and from that point onwards all monthly means were at levels that had already been experienced.
And this, once again, invites the questions, which species of flora or fauna are known to be adversely affected by an extended autumn? What are their conservation status? And what proportion of the total species mix do they comprise?
It would seem that the GCM’s that predict increasingly extreme climate events are guilty of confusing weather with climate, the crime most often attributed to sceptics.
Milder winter nights and an extra 2 weeks of autumn, seems about the only thing a grumpy Pom has to worry about.
Ian’s as smooth as any industry apologist gets. Picks the analysis that blurs out all that he wants to know and lights a smoky fire to cover the trail. Particularly leaving out all the good juice of the last 7 years.
Also list which GCMs you’re comparing to. (and pls no apostrophe as it’s not possessive) And give us some warming scenarios as the current warming is just a starter.
Don’t waste our time – do an analysis on the frequency of extremes not means with the full data set or bugger off.
Paul Biggs – “SJT, Luke – you continually fail to establish a link between the enhanced greenhouse effect and climate change, or global warming, or whatever it’s called this week.
Everything you cite has happened before without anthropogenic CO2.
Nir Shaviv has published his work in peer reviewed journals:”
I have written this before however it never ceases to amaze me that people on the one hand can debunk a quite well established link between the enhanced greenhouse effect and recent warming due to scientific uncertainty yet when an alternative theory comes along that is yet to be tested in anything other than a small scale cloud chamber the skeptics all leap on it with glee and the huge uncertainties associated with this new theory get completely ignored. Also after spending so much time trashing peer review as unnecessary it it also trumpeted as peer reviewed.
The cosmic ray/cloud formation theory is only in its pre-infancy as a theory of global warming. No clear link has been established between cosmic rays and cloud formation in the Earths atmosphere by research. Furthermore the next step of establishing that, even if more or less clouds were formed, would these clouds reflect more radiation causing cooling or trap more radiation causing warming has not even been started. In all respects the cosmic ray theory has far far less basis in research that the greenhouse gas theory that has a very good theoretical and experimental basis.
You cannot accept one theory over another just because it gives human greenhouse gas producing an out.
Yeah, right, Ender, as if the CO2 Flux Clan would be in any hurry to surrender the bloated teat of CO2 based funding.
And your ploy of injecting a single item of unknown ie, cloud function, as an excuse for discounting the theory is a bit rich given the scale and extent of the absence of reliability assigned to great wads of the GCMs already.
So your scepticism of solar input theory is evidence of intellectual rigour while our scepticism of models based on 85% uncertainty levels for key inputs is mere denial? Give us a break, that one might work on the plodders blogs but not on this one.
Well Ian – the only thing that’s bloated is your self-confidence. stop messing around and give us the solar mechanism – show us the data ! Floor us with your brilliance. Fire up the envelope .. ..
And what’s wrong with the last 2 RC posts as the alternative theory while you’re there.
Ian – “And your ploy of injecting a single item of unknown ie, cloud function, as an excuse for discounting the theory is a bit rich given the scale and extent of the absence of reliability assigned to great wads of the GCMs already.”
Its not a ploy as the mechanism of warming is before the GCMs. The GCMs really only assess the possible result and extent of the climate change induced by the change in global average temperatures.
The main problem with solar input theory is that the sun stubbornly refuses to fit in with your theory. There has been no recent upswing in solar irradiance sufficient to account for recent warming. If there is I would like to you to show the graph past the 1980s where the Swindle cut it off that shows it.
As for solar activity theory this requires drawing a pretty long bow to suggest that solar activity modulates the amount of cosmic rays that reach the earth. Then it requires an even longer bow to try and link these changes in cosmic ray flux, which hasn’t been measured to change one bit, to link them with cloud formation and then to link this morass of circumstantial evidence to global warming. All of this is before the GCMs that you would still need.
In comparison to either of these theories the quite straight forward and very well researched link between measured raised greenhouse gas levels and the also strait forward and researched link with greenhouse gases trapping longwave radiation seem very tame.
Solar Irradience
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/interdisc/readmes/sol_irrad.shtml
Cosmic Rays
http://www.realclimate.org/images/cr.jpg
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/taking-cosmic-rays-for-a-spin/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_rays
The IPCC rate the level of scientific understanding of solar irradiance as ‘low.’
Which doesn’t really matter because it’s not changing while the climate is.
Ian, you are the plodder and no-one is listening to you. Yours is an exercise in studies ignorance
and mine an exercise in hurried typing…
Oh look some more of those impacts that aren’t happening.
Study says erosion slicing Arctic Alaska habitat
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A swath of marshy, wildlife-rich coastal land in Arctic Alaska being eyed for oil drilling is eroding rapidly probably because of the disappearance of sea ice that used to protect it from the ocean waves, according to a study released on Monday.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2007-07-03T012643Z_01_N02229880_RTRUKOC_0_US-CLIMATE-ALASKA.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L3-Science+NewsNews-3
Nothing but the usual crap in that link, Luke. Winter temps rise 5C but no mention of what the old sub zero temp was or what the new subzero temp is. And “up to half a mile IN SOME PLACES” usually means substantially less in a lot of other places. Nice try at diversion though.
My thanks to Paul biggs for the Armagh data sets. Some interesting comparisons in it that will highlight the enormous yawn that temperature rises really are. Will keep you posted.