Global Warming – Global Winter
What sayeth the Data, Open Questions, a new Theory.
Klaus P. Heiss
Science & Environmental Policy Project
May 27, 2007
The Main Report as to the Science of Global Warming has just been released, three months after the Summary was published in February. A few curious things have happened since the 2001 convolute of assertions of impending doom and mankind’s guilt therein:
1. The “Hockey Stick” – diagram 1 on page 1 of the 2001IPCC “Summary”, allegedly depicting temperatures for the past 1,000 or so years and the unique rise these past decades - has disappeared. No wonder: it has been thoroughly discredited as fake statistics, reviews by “insiders” and fake data manipulation, an insult to the scientific process;
2. However, another “Stick” has replaced it: an “exploding” CO2 Hockey Stick, seemingly going off into the infinite – unstoppable and presented by the 2,500 consensual “Kyoto Scientists” as confirmation of impending doom;
3. An orgy of applying statistical methods and distributions to the chicken intestines of computer simulations: taking averages and three sigma values and Gaussian distributions galore of … nonsensical computer exercises devoid and disjoined from any empirical measurements and checks – does not improve knowledge. Indeed, where checks are possible they contradict the simulations and key predictions.
Most of the data and evidence presented below are taken from the very IPCC 2007 report and its predecessors. The other major sources are quoted and scientifically impeccable – although not always the summary of the evidence therein, a prime example the 2007 IPCC document.
The CO2 “Explosion” a la IPCC
Evidence Number 1 of the 2007 IPCC Report is Figure 1:
Figure 1: CO2 “Explosion” a la IPCC
As CO2 goes up dramatically the past 100 to 200 years, temperatures have gone up too. Conclusion by IPCC consensus: CO2 causes temperature increases and, if not stopped, the world will come to a disastrous end. As presented by the IPCC the central issue obviously is the increase in CO2 and the havoc that will cause to climate change. First of all, there are some questions regarding the accuracy of the IPCC “claimed” record of atmospheric CO2 over the past 150 years and the possible insignificance of human emissions. A good summary of both, the relatively minor contribution human CO2 emissions make to atmospheric levels (Figure A) as well as serious questions whether the CO2 series as cited by the IPCC are accurate at all (Figure B) are presented by Beck.
[Ernst-Georg Beck, “180 Years of atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods”, Energy & Environment, Vol. 18, Number 2, 2007]
Figure A: The relative contributions to atmospheric CO2 levels: the Human CO2 Tail wagging Nature’s Elephant? (Beck)
Eliminating ALL industrial CO2 emissions (including cars) to ZERO would reduce these levels by a mere 0.6%, well within the noise and measurement accuracy levels of these parameters. A case of the Human tail wagging nature’s elephant. Which raises also the question of the “shape” and direction of the tail: that these CO2 data claims shown in Figure 1 may be highly dubious, based on 180 years of various measurements, most of which have been discarded as they do not agree with the “approved” story book.
Figure B: 180 Years of Atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods (Beck)
The authors of various CO2 measurements and data series reviewed by Beck are shown in Figure C:
Figure C: 90,000 Atmospheric CO2 Measurements (1812 – 1960) ignored by the IPCC?
Rather devastating and to be checked out. Some say that these measurements are not as pristine as those of the single series Mauna Loa series – but these objections are mysteriously not applied to surface temperature measurements.
Now, why would the IPCC raise and highlight the CO2 series as “Exhibit 1” in the Summary for Policy Makers, rather than temperatures as was done in the 2001 Summary? We will come to that later, but clearly the implication to “Policy Makers” conveyed by the IPCC is that CO2 is exploding and the Earth’s temperatures will soon follow, lest we take drastic actions.
However, “buried” in the Main Report and released three months AFTER the Summary for Policy Makers, we find on page 444 (!) a data record of over 700,000 years showing CO2, temperature and other greenhouse gas changes (Figure 2):
Figure 2: CO2, CH4, N2O and Temperature Changes over 700,000 Years (IPCC 2007 – page 444)
[dimagb: figure 3 is empty]
Ah, these series are all moving up and down – in unison – more or less. Difficult to discern what comes first and what comes next. However, a more detailed look at the earlier 400,000 year record shows the following (Figure 4):
Figure 4: Temperature and CO2 Changes over 400,000 Years Vostok Ice Core Data
And lo and behold, the temperature changes are leading the CO2 changes, something that can be “seen” even without running any statistical analysis. With thorough statistical analysis one and all conclude that temperatures indeed lead CO2 changes, consistently for 420,000 years by anywhere from 200 years to 1,000 years. And look at the drastic increases indeed – the recent record pales by comparison: temperature changes of up to 12 0C within but a few years and CO2 changes a few hundred years later of equally dramatic variations.
Given the data and their cyclicity this seems the only possible causal explanation: no natural phenomena are known that would have CO2 and other greenhouse gases vary dramatically and cyclically to then cause temperature changes of equal magnitude. But the reverse, of course, has a myriad of possible explanations, some already known, some still suspected or being analyzed. All this confirmed by the very IPCC in the Main Report 2007. To quote from page 444:
“The ice core record indicates that greenhouse gases co-varied with antarctic temperature over glacial-interglacial cycles, suggesting a close link between natural atmospheric greenhouse gas variations and temperature (Box 6.2). Variations in CO2 over the last 420 kyr broadly followed antarctic temperature, typically by several centuries to a millennium [emphasis added] (Mudelsee, 2001). The sequence of climatic forcings and responses during deglaciations (transitions from full glacial conditions to warm interglacials) are well documented. High-resolution ice core records of temperature proxies and CO2 during deglaciation indicates that antarctic temperature starts to rise
several hundred years before CO2 [emphasis added] (Monnin et al., 2001; Caillon et al., 2003).”
Remarkable! Of course, no hint of such contrarian findings can be found in the “Summary for Policy Makers”: why confuse these poor minds with 700,000 years of facts? Also, whereas Figure 3 did make it into the Technical Summary (p.24), as if by magic the crucial fact that temperatures lead greenhouse gas changes somehow was never “summarized”. Rather the 700,000 year data record is cited as if to confirm all the bad 20th century happenings.
What evidence does/can the IPCC provide that such demonstrated cause and effect relationship has changed all of a sudden these past 150 years? The burden of proof is on the IPCC – but is met with deafening silence. This may also explain the non-correlation of CO2 changes and temperature changes in the 20th century, another issue the IPCC sidesteps (Figure 5):
Figure 5: Non-Correlation of Temperatures and CO2 in the 20th Century
Whereas CO2 increased steadily throughout the 20th century, temperatures did not: in fact there was a significant cooling of temperatures between 1940 and the mid 1970’s, leading some of today’s Kyoto consensus scientists to worry about the horrible consequences of a Global Winter.
Which raises the broader question: how well do all these costly simulation models do in explaining the recent decades, much less the future to come?
As chance would have it, the answer was provided in the most thorough assessment of global temperatures in one of the most expensive efforts to-date, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) Report of April 2006. [U.S. Climate Change Science Program, “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere – Steps for
understanding and reconciling Differences”, April 2006.] There two most important Figures are shown, one summarizing the “back-casts” of the temperatures of the lower troposphere – the “thing” that is supposed to warm – using the most advanced climate models for the 1958-1999 period and one showing the actual measurements with radiosondes of precisely these areas for the same period:
Figure 6: Climate Model Simulations Zonal Mean Atmospheric Temperature Changes 1958-1999
versus the actual measurements:
Figure 7: Radiosonde Data of Zonal Mean Temperature Changes from Equator to Polar Regions, 1958 – 1999
It is quite evident, even without any statistical analysis, that the climate models fail miserably in explaining for the past decades what actually happened where, after all, the actual data which the climate models are supposed to simulate are known. This becomes even more obvious when looking at the tropical zone, the area which often is projected to suffer the most dire consequences of Global Warming. The Climate Model simulation results are plotted with the actual temperature measurements for a range of altitudes (Figure 8):
Figure 8: Observations vs. Climate Model Simulations of Tropical Zones (Douglas, Knox, Pearson, Singer GRL-2006)
The disparity could not be more embarrassing: while the climate models show a significant rise, the actual measurements show even and falling temperatures for the period.
Conclusion: the “fingerprints” show that the climate models are faulty and fail to explain climate drivers as assumed in the models – principally greenhouse gases such as CO2 - and thereby prove that variations in CO2 fail to explain climate change and climate drivers. Rather than the “proclaimed consensus” that CO2 and by implication mankind are responsible for Climate Change, the evidence shows that the climate change models fail in explaining climate reality – a far cry from “proof” of human causation.
So, if not CO2, what is the temperature record and what causes climate to change? What are the prospects for further change?
The Temperature Record.
According to the IPCC this is the temperature record and outlook (Figure 9):
Figure 9: IPCC Reconstruction and Projection of Temperatures 1900 through 2300 – Summary for Policy Makers
But then again the “simulations” shown in this authoritative projection, meant to scare one and all into drastic CO2 cuts, do not “reconstruct” the 20th century temperature record, shown in broad outline earlier in the Summary. How could they, given that their main driver for climate change was a steadily increasing CO2 , but temperatures actually fell between 1940 and the mid 70’s.
But worse - for the IPCC and better for the skeptics - is to come. Whereas the simulations show a steady advance of Global Temperatures under different policy scenarios – with a flattening if we were to limit CO2 outputs globally to 2000 levels (Figure 9) - the actual temperature data seem to move already at the “steady” scenario (Figure 10):
Figure 10: Global Mean Warming: Model Predictions(2000-2025) vs. Observed Values (1985-2005) Technical Report p. 69
Now why would the scientific approach be to show simulations as prime example in the Summary for policy makers without data points, but in the Technical Report the actual data and projections as shown in Figure 10. Why? Quite simple: the “observed” data plotted for 1985 through 2005 indicate the orange line as “best predictor” for what is to follow in the 21st century, quite embarrassing. Which raises a host of other issues: First of all, why have global temperatures ceased to rise for the past ten years, ever since 1998? The record of global temperatures of the troposphere as measured by satellites is shown in Figure 11:
Figure 11: Global Lower Troposphere Temperatures (Satellites)
The maximum temperatures reached in 1998 were 0.80C above the average, temperatures since then at most 0.40C above.
Before discussing the possible components of climate change, what is it now with temperatures: are they rising, falling or steady? The answer is an unequivocal YES (Figure 12):
Figure 12: Temperature Trends from Greenland Ice Core Data:
Rising (16,000 years), Steady (10,000 years), Sinking (since 2,000 years), Steady (past 1,000 years) and Rising (past 150 years) Temperature increases like the past 150 years are nothing unusual. E.g. a nearly identical rise can be seen in data of some 26,000 years ago (Figure 13):
Figure 13: Temperature increases some 26,000 years ago, estimated form Ocean sediments off New Zealand.
If not greenhouse gases, what causes temperature/climate change? Well, whatever it is, the actual mechanism must relate to the Sun and the various cycles between the Sun, Earth and their movement through the Milky Way. Whereas CO2 correlates poorly with temperature changes in the 20th century, here various parameters of Solar activity and temperatures (Figure 14):
Figure 14: Are Solar Cycles, Cosmic Rays and Changes in Irradiance the Drivers of Temperatures and Climate Change?
As can be seen from these different plots of temperatures vs. Solar cycles, cosmic ray activity and changes in irradiance, they all “track” temperature changes rather nicely – including the significant fall in global temperatures from 1940 through the mid 1970’s. So the driving force(s) may well be buried there, since by any stretch of the imagination it is unlikely that human activities and events in and around the Earth influence the activities of the Sun.
We now know that the Solar spots and their cycles are determined by a 22 year cycle in the switch of the Solar polar fields: from North Pole to South Pole (eleventh year) and from South Pole back to the North Pole (22nd year).
Beyond that, additional cyclicities seem to occur: an ~87 year cycle (~four times 22), a ~210 year cycle (~ ten times 22 year Solar polarity cycle), a ~1470 year cycle (~ seven (eight?) times ~210 year cycle).
Beyond that, of course, we know about the ~20,000 and ~40,000 year Milankovitch cycles resulting from the peculiarities of the Earth/Sun movements through the Milky Way, wherein the North and South regions of Earth “switch” the long summers/short winter cycles and the North pole points to Vega instead of Polaris. Beyond that the Antarctic ice core data indicate clearly a 100,000 year climate cycle for the last one million years – the cycles shown so distinctly in Figures 3 and 4 above.
A “scientific” approach to climate change and temperature predictions would be to take all these different cycles and see how much remains to be explained in the past 150 years beyond these cyclical movements: if a significant deviation from these “natural” movements can be found, maybe something needs to be explained after all. Well, bad news again for Climate disaster adherents: recent work by Ernest c. Njau establishes a close to zero “remainder”. To quote: “This establishment implies that, contrary to previous expectations and opinions, anthropogenic activities hardly generate significant net alterations in global temperature or solar energy patterns. However, these anthropogenic activities can significantly alter other parameters of the surface– atmosphere system….” and “…As detailed in Refs. [15–21, 26, 28, 29], the global temperature variation patterns since 1700 AD (including the much-reported post-1970 global warming trend) consist of a series of sinusoidal amplitude-modulation envelopes and beats-containing amplitude-modulation envelopes. All these envelopes (together with their phase-reversal sequences whose theory is given in Ref. [21]) are significantly related to the _800 years solar cycle, the 90–120 years solar (or sunspot) cycle and the 180–250 years solar cycle in the manner explained in Refs. [19, 21, 28]. The post-1970 global warming trend, for example, coincides with the last rising phase of a large (temperature) sinusoidal envelope related to the 90–120 years solar cycle, and that this particular envelope is itself mounted or carried on the ongoing rising phase of another larger (temperature) sinusoidal envelope related to the 180–250 years solar cycle [15–21, 26, 28]….”.
[Njau, Ernest C., 2007. Formulations of human-induced variations in global temperature. Renewable Energy Vol. 32, No 13, pp. 2211-2222, October 2007]
Over 1,300 years we find the following pattern – still being refined and improved as to
data quality and resolution (Figure 15):
Figure 15: 1,300 Years of Solar Activity, Temperatures, Climate Change
Based on all this and related expertise, members of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg have predicted the likely outbreak of a Little Ice Age just as in the Middle Ages several hundred years ago (Figure 16):
Figure 16: A Small Little Ice Age in ten to 15 Years? (Klyashtorin und Lyubushin, 2003 – Energy and Environment 14, 773-783)
Given the earlier (hidden) findings of the IPCC (Figure 10 above), wherein the “extrapolation” of the data fit curve (black line) based on the last decade indicate a slowing down of Global Temperatures toward the “orange line” projection (the one with “Year 2000” constant global CO2 levels), but without any drastic cuts in human CO2 output to the atmosphere: good news indeed, as the Russian projections, Njau’s work and the very IPCC data-fits and simulated projections for once seem to agree, except of course, for the need to cut CO2 emissions, which by the very evidence of the IPCC 2007 report itself has been shown to be caused by temperature changes, rather than the other way around. Good news indeed, but one would not know it reading but the “Summary for Policy Makers” (i.e. the sources of further funding).
Three more themes will be addressed: is Global Warming intrinsically “bad” or “good” should it continue ; what is the link between Solar variations and temperature variations on Earth; and whence the “Precautionary Principle”.
Is Global Warming intrinsically “Good” or “Bad”?
In the 1970’s the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. – the museum accused of late to submit to “political pressure” in not unequivocally predicting impending Global Doom due to Global Warming – dedicated three rooms to Climate Change and the horrible consequences of … a Global Ice Age. This exhibit was on display well into the 21st century until a few years ago. Bottom line: an Ice Age would be horrible, have drastic negative economic and ecological consequences, lead to wholesale extinction of species, hunger, pestilence, possibly the end of mankind as we know it.
Well, the panels have been changed to Global Warming as of late, but the cries of the Climate Cassandras remains the same: wholesale extinction of species, drastic negative economic consequences, hunger and pestilence, possibly the end of mankind as we know it. All you have to do is “push a button” and you will know precisely what the world will look like 50 years from now: doom, gloom, disasters.
Well, the only negative effect of further Global Warming that on the face of it at least looks logical is the melting of the ice on Greenland and the Antarctic (not the Arctic of course, difficult as that is to explain even to habitual drinkers of “on the rocks” libations, where glasses fail to overflow despite the melting of the ice.
Well, the ice has been melting seriously now for about 16,000 years and will continue to do so even with Little Ice Ages in between (Figure 17):
Figure 17: The Formation and Melting of the Earth’s Ice: 120,000 Years and 32,000 Years (IPCC 2007)
We are where we were 120,000 years ago. Not only that: the major melting of ice is behind us and occurred between 16,000 and 7,000 years ago, with a series of truly catastrophic events such as the flooding of the Black Sea some 7,500 years ago spreading all the residents into the four corners of the known world, the horrendous floods, possibly periodic, of the Scablands in Washington State and the Rocky Mountain area and untold disasters yet to be documented. But the curve has flattened out, most of the ice is gone, some remains and when all is gone sea levels indeed will rise another few tens of meters over thousands of years and be where they were before ice ages. We have survived – thanks amongst others to Gilgamesh /Noah - and will adapt also to whatever further changes nature will bring. But the melting of ice is not something we can stop: nowhere is that proposed, not even by the IPCC. The ice will melt, lest another ice age cometh – neither one of which we can stop, or bring about.
Yet even if the current warm climate were to persist, it is doubtful that we would reach an “ice free” Northern Hemisphere of two+ million years ago, when all this cooling started for serious, or even an ice free Antarctic of five+ million years ago: we would have returned to what in biblical times is described as “Paradise” – where one and all could cavort around naked quite comfortably.
The question is whether, in principle, less ice or more ice is good for mankind and nature. And the resounding evidence is: less ice. Here but two examples:
Figure 18: Europe during the Climate Optimum of the Holocene (6 to 9,000 years ago) and the Ice Age (21,000 years ago) (Ulrich Berner, Klimafakten, 2001)
In Figure 18 Europe is shown based NOT computer simulations, but on extensive archeological and climatological records:
(a) “Option A” during the Holocene Climate Optimum (now being rechristened by some), where temperatures were 20C to 30C warmer than today and with higher humidity. At that time conditions for intensive agriculture extended practically throughout a glacier free Europe, with the “green zone” of most bioactive areas covering most of Western and Central Europe, as well as “Little Asia”; and
(b) “Option B” during the last Ice Age of 21,000 years ago, where glaciers covered all of Northern Europe, including all of the United Kingdom, the Benelux States, most of Germany and Central Europe, all of the Alps – today the richest economic zone of Europe if not the world - and some of the Apennines and the Pyrenees: a true environmental, biological, economic and societal disaster, obvious on “optical inspection” without the need of “sophisticated” computer models known as climate models today.
We also have, thanks to NCDC-NOAA, a fairly accurate depiction of conditions during the Holocene optimum of the North Polar regions (Figure 19):
Figure 19: Temperature (6,000 years) and forest line (8,000 years) ago (Summer) Comparisons to Present in the Northern Region (NCDC-NOAA)
As is clearly evident from these data (not simulations) the biosphere extended substantially further North, Greenland could be circumnavigated, just as one suspects also during the time of the Medieval Climate Optimum at the time of the Viking expeditions and Medieval maps showing the full contours of Greenland, with the exception of one single point around Northeastern Labrador (-10C). The polar bears survived this climate optimum quite well, it seems. They will also survive the current warming.
Yes, some coastal zones will have to be abandoned: “we” have done that now for over 16,000 years and will continue to do so. Many a harbor city of antiquity now is flooded by the sea. But we also gain immensely due to the dramatic expansion of “living space” throughout the Northern Hemisphere and, at some future time, maybe even in the Antarctic. Two relevant empirical observations thereto:
Will Global Warming increase or decrease rainfall/humidity?
Horror stories are generated in computer models and let loose on the innocent readers: Europe is going to become a desert, the same is predicted by some for the United States, a “global dustbowl” is “predicted”. Again, the measured data and the archeological and climatological records indicate exactly the opposite. It is also counterintuitive: higher atmospheric temperatures mean higher atmospheric humidity, hence higher rainfalls somewhere – certainly not less. Which goes to explain why the Sahara was covered with grazing lands and habitation during the Holocene (revealed first by satellite images in the 1970’s). Many other examples can be cited. Here the actual measurements over oceans for the past decades (Figure 20):
Figure 20: Global Mean Humidity (1988-2005) and Temperature Increases (troposphere, oceans) (IPCC 2007)
This is also evident, to the layman at least, when comparing humidity vs. dryness between Tropical (warm) and Antarctic (cold) areas: the former are quite humid, the latter the driest places on Earth, with close to zero humidity. For the same reason one needs to “humidify” lips in Winter and while on excursions on glaciers.
Will Global Warming Increase or Decrease the Severity of Weather Fluctuations?
Again and again horror scenarios are painted by the Global Warming adherents as to the coming hurricane and tornado avalanche and much more drastic weather/climatic variations. Well, aside from the known US record of tornados and hurricanes which shows a clear “peak” in the 1930’s and a reduction and flattening since then, a much more detailed record for the past 50,000 years or so by now also indicates that warmer climes are more “stable” climes, whereas cold (ice age) periods cause much more violent year to year weather and climate fluctuations (Figure 21)
Figure 21: Temperature Variations of the Past 50,000 Years (GISP2 – Greenland Ice Cores) (Robert Carter)
These are exciting and relevant measurements indeed, from Greenland Ice Cores and they belie the general alarmist notion that warm climes lead to more violent weather events overall. This abatement of weather/temperature changes in warmer periods is intuitively explained by the simple fact, that with a general rise of global temperatures the polar regions will warm much more than the tropics – as evidenced also by the much shorter measurements mentioned earlier when comparing simulated to actual Tropospheric data for the most recent past.
Will Global Warming Decrease or Increase Global Food Production/Wellbeing?
The “greening” of Earth with higher temperatures has another, most positive effect [5]: food production – both yield and area – will expand substantially with increased warming. This is evident from NASA / NOAA Landsat images but, more importantly, also confirmed by extensive econometric studies in the 1970’s for Goddard Space Flight Center, when Global Warming was not an issue (indeed Global Winter was, based on the previous 35 years of sinking temperatures). [6] At that time crop areas and yields were compared county by county and over the complete available agricultural data record in North America – and for that matter also Russia and its allied Union members.
[5] Wittwer, S.H.: Food, Climate and Carbon Dioxide: The Global Environment and World Food Production, 1992, Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Lewis Publishers; Wittwer, S.H.: Flower Power: Rising Carbon Dioxide is great for Your Plants, 1995 Policy Review (Fall) 4-9 and Keeling, C.D., J.F.S. Chin, and T.P. Whorf, Increased Activity in Northern Vegetation Inferred from Atmospheric CO2 Measurements, Nature 1996, 382:146-49
[6] Heiss, K. P.: “Econometric Models of Agricultural Supply: The Effects of Price and Weather on Wheat Production”, ECON Report to Goddard Space Flight Center, September 1977; Heiss, K.P., D.F. Bradford, H.H. Kelejian: “The Value of Information for Crop Forecasting in a Market System with International Trade: Theory and Empirical Results” ECON Inc., Princeton NJ, 1975; K.P. Heiss: “Economic Benefits of Improved Information on Worldwide Crop Production”, Report for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NAS-5-23412, 1977; K.P. Heiss: “An Integrated Model of the Value of Worldwide Wheat Supply Information in Production and Distribution”, Council of Economic Advisers, April 1977; K.P. Heiss, F. Sand, J. Bodechtel, D. Farley, J. Henkel “Economic Assessment of a European Remote Sensing Satellite System for Agriculture Applications”, ECON Report for the European Space Agency, August 1980
The results are shown in Figure 22:
Figure 22: Increased Crop Yields from Higher Temperatures, Humidity and CO2 Econometric Studies for Goddard Space Flight Center 1970’s
The increase in worldwide food (grain) production by 30% to possibly as much as 50% is due to two factors: one, increased yield (see Figure 22) and two, increased areas opened for cultivation throughout Northern America and Russia/Siberia. The detailed quantitative results are shown in the footnote. [6] The basic results of substantially higher global productivity with higher global temperatures have also been confirmed before [7] and since then in other empirical studies. [8]
[6] WINTERWHEAT: Yield = 1.0537 – 0,02357 Area + 0,4632 Trend + 0,0194 W1 – 0,08036W12 + 0,02482W2 – 0,04454W22 – 0,01246W3 + 0,01188W32 with values for weather (rainfall, temperatures): W1 for December, January and February; W2 for March, April, May and W3 for June, July, August. The regression coefficient is 0.9095; the standard deviation 0.1308; Rho 0.6308 and the t-value (Rho) 3.62; statistically significant and stable results. The t-values for the weather variables are 0.56 (W1), 0.45 (W12), 3.0 (W2), 2.1 (W22), 0.83 (W3) und 0.43 (W32) – the values for March, April and May are particularly significant. SPRINGWHEAT: Yield = -0.17056 + 0.00033 Area + 0.05429 Trend + 0.6100W1 – 0.17331W12 where W1 represent weather (rainfall, temperatures) in June, July and August. The regression coefficient is still 0.7994, the standard deviation is 0.1896, Durbin Watson 2.0. The t-values for W1 and W12 are 1.61 and 1.46 , well within econometric acceptable values for economic production processes.
[7] Thompson, L.M.: “Weather and Technology in the Production of Wheat in the U.S.”, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 24, 1969, pp. 220-224;
[8] Prentice, C., W. Cramer, S. Harrington, R. Leemans, R. Monserud and A. Solomon: “A Global Biome Model Based on Plant Physiology and Dominance, Soil Properties and Climate” 1992, Journal of Biogeography 19: 117-34 and Woodward, I., T. Smith and W. Emanuel: “A Global Land Primary Productivity and Phytobiogeography Model”, 1995, Global Biogeochemical Cycles 9: 471- 490
Figure 23:Wheat Prices and Solar Activity in Lower Saxony 1750 – 1850 (Ulrich Berner, Klimafakten, 2001)
The positive relationship between temperatures and grain production has been known for some time, dating back at least to the time on Leibnitz. Figure 23 shows the historical relationship between wheat prices and temperatures (Solar activity) for local grain (wheat) markets in Lower Saxony:
This again has been confirmed in econometric studies of the 1970’s and since [9: 9 Heiss, K. P., “Econometric Models of Agricultural Supply: The Effects of Price and Weather on Wheat Production”, ECON Report to Goddard Space Flight Center, September 1977]. This point is presented in such detail and with references to quantitative, empirical results and evidence, to disprove the canard being advanced that the effects of global warming, were it to persist, would have catastrophic consequences: the evidence therefor is lacking. On the contrary: even the IPCC 2001 Technical Report comes to the same positive conclusion as to the effects of CO2, but who would ever now from reading the “Summary” (pp. 198ff. of 2001 IPCC Main Report).
Over historical times – the past 5,000 years or so – the cycles between warm and cold periods and the coincidence of “good” periods with “warm” periods are quite remarkable (Figure 24):
Figure 24: Warm Periods – Good Periods? Following the 11, 22, 87, 210, and 1470 year Solar Cycles through History
What Causes Paleoclimate Changes?
Which leaves one last, “small” problem: what “causes” the vast temperature changes throughout Earth’s climate history? The “temperature” variations of the Sun Spot cycle alone, by themselves, clearly are insufficient to explain the vast temperature changes on Earth: sometimes horrendous “Ice Boxes” persisting for millions of years, preceded and followed by eons of calm, high temperature climes, with CO2 levels “astronomically” higher e.g. 500-600 million years ago - the Middle Age of Climate – than today. In Figure 25 key climate change data for the past 400 and 70 million years are shown:
Figure 25: Continental Glaciation, Atmospheric CO2 and Climate Change Past 400 Million Years and 70 Million Years (IPCC 2007)
There is unanimity among all paleoclimate scientists that CO2 levels 5 to 600 million years ago were dramatically higher than today, ten to twentyfold higher. Temperatures were also higher, although not by that factor when compared to today’s relatively low values. According to the IPCC depiction there existed two extensive “Ice Boxes” during this time: one about 300 million years ago, another one “today” – the past 35, five and two million years. Other paleoclimate scientists believe there were also periods of smaller (little) ice ages in between, e.g. 140 million years ago.
Moving to the “Second Ice Box” shown in Figure 23, the one we are in now, we see that contiguous ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere formed only about three million years ago, in the Southern Hemisphere (the Antarctic) ten or more million years ago (East Antarctic). The temperature record by now can be established with surprising accuracy based on 10Be measurements, principally from ocean cores near and around New Zealand, where the worlds ocean climate forms between the Antarctic waters and the Pacific Ocean.
The questions are many. E.g. what triggers the dramatic descent into cold periods? Given the available paleoclimate record and the Vostok Ice Core data of 400,000 and now 700,000 years – we now know that CO2 is not the cause of temperature changes. Rather, the temperature changes cause the CO2 changes. We also know that temperature changes track closely Solar cycles. The relation was established in great detail by Friis-Christensen and Knud Larsen, published in 1991. But the change in Solar energy emitted from the Sun in no way can explain the temperature changes on Earth.
It is here that Henrik Svensmark had a seminal “insight” twelve years ago, in 1995: could it be that cosmic rays caused cloud formation and changes in cloud formation give rise to the large swings in global temperatures? With more clouds more sunlight would be reflected back into Space – hence cooling, with fewer clouds, less reflection and therefore warming of the atmosphere (see Figure 26):
Figure 26: Henrik Svensmark’s New Paradigm on Climate Change
By studiously collecting and aggregating cloud cover data and impacts of cosmic rays on Earth’s atmosphere Svensmark established a strong, positive correlation between these. These data, first published in 1997 were updated by Svensmark and Marsh in 2003 (Figure 27):
Figure 27: Temperature Variability and (inverse) Cosmic Rays Impact 1950 – 2000
(Marsh, Svensmark 2003)
The match could not have been better. Svensmark and colleagues then proceeded to also provide physical proof of the generation mechanism between cosmic rays and cloud formation in the SKY experiment. The experiment was delayed, but in the end successful and – with further delays “by the establishment” - published in October 2006. Since the others have duplicated and confirmed these results. Just out is a good summary of these issues by Svensmark and Calder, The Chilling Stars. [10: Henrik Svensmark und Nigel Carter, The Chilling Stars – A new Theory of Climate Change, IKON Books (UK) und TOTEM Books (USA), 2007.]
The same theory also helps to explain the dichotomy between global temperature changes worldwide vs. peculiar “reverse” trends in the Antarctic: when global temperatures warm, the Antarctic often tends to cool. The reason for this: whereas clouds over oceans and land are much whiter (reflecting) than those surfaces – hence reflect more solar energy, the reverse is the case in the Antarctic: the ice there is whiter, more reflective than the clouds, hence with more clouds actually a warming tendency in those areas.
By now Solar activity cycles have been reconstructed with reasonable accuracy and detail for the past 1,300 years (see Figure 15 above), but some have set their eyes even further back: Shaviv and Veizer extended the cosmic rays and climate change connection all the way back for the 4 billion plus years of Earth’s climate history. According to their theory, the often dramatic changes in climate can be explained by the movement of the Solar system through the Milky Way. When we move through heavy gravitational zones, with larger star formation and subsequent supernova events, things tend to cool remarkably on Earth and vice versa, when we move through zones of tranquility between the major arms of our galaxy things quite down and are in a stable steady, warm state (Figure 28):
Figure 28: Are the major Climate Changes observed in the Paleoclimate caused by the Movement of the Solar System through Gravitational Arms of our Milky Way? (Shaviv and Veizer)
These new possibilities are breathtaking, akin to a universal Cosmologic Theory of Climate Change of yet incalculable implications. Most important, an empirical, credible “causality” would have been established.
The record so far is encouraging: 2,400 to 2,200 million years ago and then again 750 to 580 million years ago all of Earth was a snowball, completely covered by ice floats and sheets. It was precisely at those times that the Solar system moved through particularly strong gravitational fields and star formation regions, with concurrent strong cosmic ray fluxes. The same occurred again about 300 million years ago, with drastic cooling, impact of asteroids (from nearby supernova explosions?) and mass extinctions of marine and land based organisms on an unprecedented scale: between 70% and 90% of all living organisms died out. It was also the time of the rise of mammals and other warm blooded creatures, since they had a better chance of making it through the cold period, given their use of oxidation processes to provide requisite sources of bodily energy. Our current state of knowledge as to our Milky Way, its various arms and the location of our Solar system are shown in Figure 29:
Figure 29: Our Current Knowledge as to the Structure of the Milky Way – enabled in large part by observations in the infra-red part of the spectrum. The “star” indicates the approximate location of our Solar system.
In further work Svensmark established a strong relation between 13C (biological activities) and 18O in ocean sediments (temperature proxies). Svensmark was able to trace this relationship back 3,600 million years with cycles of strong Solar and cosmic ray activity with concurrent cold times and extensive periods of low cosmic radiation and Solar activities with warm periods, in total 13 periods of about 400 million years each – with a correlation of 92%. Not bad.
Other interesting research topics arise: Shaviv’s theory would indicate a cold period about 140 million years ago which to-date was assumed to be a warm period (see Figure 25 above). Since then geologic finds indicate indeed the possibility of an Ice period at that time: Neville Alley and Larry Frakes, University of Adelaide found evidence of glaciation near the Flinders Range in Western Australia dating to that period, probably the first time in climate theory that a climate prediction led to the discovery of such evidence in the climatic record.
And more: the Solar system moves in a “Dolphin” like movement up and down the Milky Way disk as it moves around the core, crossing the main disk every 34 million years or so. Some cyclicity of this length is evident in the geologic record as well.
Last but not least, at the “dawn” of mankind: some 2.8 million years ago a close and very strong supernova event seems to have happen, just as we were moving through the Pleiades constellation arm, maybe as close as a few 100 light years, our very back yard. It is this event which may have triggered our descent into the current “Ice Box” of 2.75 million years of extreme cold, even with the periodic ups and downs we discussed above. Evidence documenting this event has been found in ocean sediments – 60Fe isotopes discovered and measured by Günter Korschinek and his team (Garching, Germany). Korschinek’s conclusion: it may have been this event that triggered the selective survival and adaptation mechanisms leading to hominid and then human species of today. Other exciting vistas have been opened herewith, with many new findings coming in nearly every month.
And the IPCC 2007? All the results over the past decade by Svensmark, Veizer, Shaviv, Marsh and many others do not even appear in the footnotes or references of its vast compendium: politically incorrect?
Which brings us to the last refuge of climate alarmists:
The “Precautionary Principle” – against what and what for?
The importation of the “Vorsorgeprinzip” of German sociopolitical doctrines of the 1920’s into the English literature, similar to the other currently de rigueur attribute “sustainable”, seem to have sliced the links between rational arguments based on evidence and proposed policies: whatever the evidence, precaution dictates that we mutilate ourselves economically and socially through drastic CO2 and other greenhouse gas reductions so as to assure a good, benign future climate and world.
Well, since
we do not know whether the world will continue to warm,
global temperatures these past ten years (since 1998) have not increased (Figure 11) and
the very IPCC projections buried in the Main Report indicate an approximation of the plotted temperature measurements to the flat, orange “zero CO2 increase” scenario without any such restrictions (Figures 6 and 7);
the preponderance of evidence indicates that temperatures are causing CO2 and other greenhouse gas changes rather than the reverse (at least for a complete record of 700,000 years by now; Figures 3 and 4);
global warming in fact leads us back to a better, more benign future such as we experienced over long periods in the past (Figures 18 and 19 among others);
Climate Change is caused by Solar activities and the movement of our Solar system through the Milky Way, with sometimes vast variations in cosmic ray impacts on Earth, over which we have no influence whatever (Figures 24 through 26);
A Little Ice Age with known negative effects on the environment, biodiversity and economic wellbeing may be around the corner (Figure 16); and
We cannot stop the melting of the ice, whatever we chose to do (Figure 17)
what is it then that we should be “precautionary” about and what mechanism
/measures should/can be implemented with any chance of success?
E.g., if the proposed measures of the IPCC were “effective”, they might lead to a serious
aggravation of the next Little Ice Age, should the preponderance of the cyclical analyses
of Climate Change be correct, including the very graphs buried by the IPCC in the Main
Report.
Thanks, but no thanks.
© DIMaGB, HTML document
27.05.2007
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Die Seiten:
:: A.v. Alvensleben: Kohlendioxid und Klima
:: Alfons Baier, Aspekte zur "Klimakatastrophe"
:: Umweltphysik: Fakten von E.G. Beck
:: Prof. Dr. Gerhard Gerlich Aufsätze
:: Kommentar zum Artikel „Der große Schwindel“
:: IWOE, Klimakatastrophen-Märchen und Landschaftsgestaltung
:: Klima + Politik = Nepp + Abzocke, Klima-Betrug
:: Klima Zahlen und Fakten, 2007 + 2008
:: Aufsätze von Prof. Horst Malberg
:: Die Klimakatastrophe im Wandel der Zeit
:: Neues vom Öko-Narrenhaus
:: Dr. Thüne: Ökodiktatur, Treibhauseffekt
:: Irrtümer in der Klimatologie, CO2, Treibhauseffekt
:: Windkraftanlagen - sündhaft teuer und nutzlos
