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2 It’s getting colder
The true mark of a theory is without doubt its ability to predict
phenomena.
- Georges Cuvier, Recherches
sur les Ossemans, 1822
Regardless
of whether, as I have argued above, warmer temperatures are on the whole beneficial
for mankind, the present trend in average global temperature suggests that we
are unlikely to see significantly warmer temperatures for some time to
come.
All of the key temperature datasets – the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) record; the Remote Sensing System Microwave Sounding Unit data (RSS MSU); the University of Alabama at Huntsville Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (UAH AMSU); and the data gathered by the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office (HADLEY) – show a sustained cooling trend. Temperatures peaked in 1998, and have declined steadily since 2002 (see figure 4). The present temperature shows no measurable warming since 1995. It is no longer possible even for the most ardent proponents of the AGW thesis to deny the observed fact: it’s getting colder.
Variances
between satellite temperature records – by far the most accurate and global
means of measuring atmospheric temperature – and land-based thermometer records
are largely the result of significant problems with the latter, which are
affected inter alia by land-use
changes, the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect,[2]
station drop-out,[3]
inconsistent coverage, poor station siting,[4]
and manual alteration of data.[5] The difference is manifested in a strong
divergence between the satellite and land-based temperature record over the
past six years. Since 2003, the
satellite record shows temperatures dropping at a rate of 2.84ºC/century (UAH
record) and 3.60ºC/century (RSS record), while the land-based temperature data maintained
by the Goddard Institute of Space Studies shows a rate of decline of only
0.96ºC/century (GISS).[6]
The divergence between the satellite and the land-based temperature record is
becoming more pronounced over time. It
is curious, although perhaps not surprising, that despite the many problems
with the quality of the data in the land-based temperature record, the
proponents of the AGW thesis prefer the results it produces over those produced
by satellite temperature measurements.
All of these data, incidentally, are available on-line.[7]
As noted
in the preceding section, the fact that it is getting colder is important for a
number of reasons. The foremost is that
a colder climate is less conducive to human comfort. Colder temperatures restrict habitable lands,
reduce the amount of land available for agriculture, and shorten growing
seasons. The inevitable result of colder
temperatures is reduced food supply, resulting in hardship and starvation for
less developed nations. Surviving colder
temperatures also requires more energy, whether for heating or, in more
northern countries like Canada, to maintain the infrastructure necessary to
survive and function in an inherently inhospitable climate. This calls into question the logic of
policies that, if implemented, are likely to make energy more difficult to
obtain, and more costly to produce and consume.
(The shaded
pink area represents the upper/lower range of possible temperatures predicted
by the IPCC over the past four Assessment Reports, with the solid pink line
representing the midpoint. The red
graph line shows actual measured temperature anomalies, with the solid red
line representing the composite trend from NASA GISS, RSS MSU, UAH AMSU, and
Hadley, all of which are available on-line.)
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The second
reason that the present cooling trend is important is because it is the precise opposite of what has been
predicted by the proponents of the AGW thesis.
The computer (“general circulation”) models whose outputs are cited by, inter alia, the IPCC have consistently
projected continual, uninterrupted increases in average global
temperature. As figure 5 demonstrates,
the divergence between the computer projections and the actual observed data is
stark.
In the
face of cooling temperatures, the staunchest of the AGW theory’s proponents
have scrambled to argue that both colder and warmer weather are proof of
climate change.[9] But this sort of argument is a tautology; of
course changing temperatures are proof of climate change. The issue is not whether climate is
changing, because climate has always changed, and always will; this is the
nature of a cyclical system. The question
is what
is causing climate to change?
All of the computer-generated climate projections offered by the AGW
theorists predicted that global temperatures would rise in response to increasing CO2 concentrations. They have, instead, fallen. It is difficult to
see how increasing CO2 concentrations could cause temperatures to
both rise from 1980-1998, and fall from 1998-2009. As we shall see in the next chapter, the
non-correlation of CO2 concentrations with global temperatures holds
not only for the last seven years, but for the entirety of history for which
suitable records or proxies for temperature and CO2 concentrations exist.
When a theory predicts that a trend line
will rise and it falls instead, then there is a problem with the theory; this
is the crux of the contention by Georges Cuvier heading this chapter. It is unlikely that Newton would today be
venerated if he had argued that apples fall upwards, or Einstein if he had
proven mathematically that E=m2c. Theories live or die on the basis of
experimental confirmation. A positive
result, Popper argued, can only temporarily support a theory, while subsequent
negative results will always falsify it.[10] Einstein himself put it this way: “No amount
of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me
wrong.”[11]
When a
theory cannot explain observed data – and, one might argue, especially when observations proceed in
the direction opposite to what theory
predicts – then scientific rigour demands that the theory be adapted if
possible, and if not possible, that it be abandoned. Instead of modifying or abandoning their
hypothesis, however, the proponents of the global warming thesis have
retrenched their position, arguing against the data instead of trying to find a
credible explanation for them. An
unscientific response to a scientific challenge is unlikely to be successful in
convincing increasingly sceptical constituents of the need to take “urgent
action to combat climate change”, when the proof of their own senses is all
that is necessary to demonstrate to them that the AGW thesis is deeply flawed.
NOTES
[1]
Christopher Monckton, “Global Warming Has Stopped”, Science and Public Policy
Institute, 31 October 2008, 2 [http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/global_warming_has_stopped.html]. It is worth noting that the rate of cooling
shown by the NASA GISS data is only about 1/3 the rate shown by all other
datasets. This suggests that NASA’s
data-gathering and/or handling practices are worthy of closer scrutiny, in
order to determine why its results are so significantly out of step with the
other datasets.
[2] See Ross R. McKitrick and Patrick J. Michaels, “Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and
inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data”, Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 112, D24S09,
doi:10.1029/2007JD008465, 2007 [http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/
research/jgr07/ M&M.JGRDec07.pdf].
[3]
The number of global temperature measurement stations dropped from a high of
6000 in 1970 to roughly 2000 today. Most
of the dropouts occurred at the fall of the Soviet Union, and most of the lost
stations were rural. The result is a
higher statistical emphasis on urban stations, exacerbating the contamination
from UHI and land-use changes. See
Joseph D’Aleo, “Recent Cooling and the Serious Global Data Base Issue” [http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Recent_Coolingand_the_Serious_Data_Integrity_issue.pdf].
[4]
See the “How Not To Measure Temperature” series maintained by Anthony Watts at
[http://wattsupwiththat.com/category/weather_stations/]. Recent examples include thermometers situated
in front of air condition exhausts, near barbecues, and buried in Antarctic
snow.
[5] A
data posting error by the NASA GISS staff in autumn 2008 (in which September
temperature data for Siberia was mistakenly copied over October data) led to
renewed cries of impending doom by the AGW alarmists, until the data error was
reported by a blogger, and subsequently correct by GISS. For a breakdown of the incident, see [http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/12/corrected-nasa-gistemp-data-has-been-posted/].
[6] Steve Goddard and Anthony Watts, “GISS Divergence with satellite temperatures since the start of 2003”, 18 January 2009 [http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/18/giss-divergence-with-satellite-temperatures-since-the-start-of-2003/].
[7] NASA
GISS data are here [http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/]. RSS MSU/AMSU data re here [http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html]. UAH AMSU data are here [http://datapool.nsstc.nasa.gov/]. Hadley Centre data are here [http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadat/].
[8]
Christopher Monckton, “Temperature change and CO2 change: A scientific
briefing”, Science and Public Policy Institute, January 2009, 6 [http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/temperature_
and_co2_change_briefing.html].
[9] A
classic example is provided by George Monbiot, the Guardian’s go-to commentator
for climate change orthodoxy (George Monbiot, “The Skeptics are Skating on Thin
Ice”, guardian.co.uk, 9 January 2009, [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/09/climatechange-weather]). Deriding opponents as “blithering idiots”, he
argues that “just because we can skate outdoors doesn’t mean climate change
isn’t happening.” Monbiot’s argument is
nonsensical; no one is arguing that climate does not change. Last year nobody skated on Dutch canals or
built igloos in London; this year, they did.
That’s change. The point is that
climate is changing in the direction opposite
to that predicted by all of the
computer models upon which the AGW thesis was constructed.
[10] Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Logik der Forschung; trans. by author with assistance of Dr. Julius
Freed and Lan Freed)(New York: Routledge Classics, 2002), 10.
[11] Robert I. Fitzhenry, ed., The Fitzhenry & Whiteside Book of
Quotations (Markham, Ontario: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Inc., 1993), 401.
