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What temperature should the planet be?
Reading Richard Fulmer’s excellent post about Exxon being accused of holding illegal opinions on global warming reminded me of my response to my incredulous friends who just can’t believe that I don’t believe in science. My skepticism of the global warming issue produces such a strong response that I have developed a simple, reasonable set of questions to pose to my friends, which express my uncertainty:
- What do you think the correct temperature of the world is?
- Should that temperature always be the same, or is some variation acceptable (or even healthy)?
- Who gets to pick that temperature? Mosquitoes? Polar bears? Camels? Plankton? What’s best for one may not be ideal for another.
- Note that right now, we believe that it is cooler than it has been for 90% of the time since the last Ice Age. So it is likely to be getting warmer over the next few hundred years, if everything evens out statistically. This, of course, is presuming that we are not entering another Ice Age now, or if something else happens – hard to say. Would it be better if it got warmer, or if it got cooler? Are you sure?
- Also note that we have only been collecting satellite data on planet temperatures for the past couple decades. Our satellite data continues to improve, we think – it was of dubious accuracy in the beginning of the space age. Before that, we looked at a bunch of thermometers of varying accuracy in various locations and averaged them together somehow. So we’re judging climate trends which occur over the course of hundreds of millions of years based on 10-20 years’ worth of “data” which we think might be close to accurate. Until we improve it next year. The difference between that and pure guessing is not much.
- Do you think it’s likely that our understanding of climate science 100 years from now will be the same as it is now? Are we sure about all this? Remember that just 20-30 years ago we were certain that the next Ice Age was imminent. Perhaps we were right then. Perhaps we’re right now. Perhaps there’s some other possibility we haven’t thought of yet. All we know is that our 5-10 year models that we’ve done over the past several decades have all been no better than pure guessing – usually wrong. In my job as a doctor, I would not make a decision on patient care based on such inconsistent data. That’s not called settled science. That’s called malpractice.
- The primary source of energy on this planet is the Sun. Previous variations in temperatures have been mostly linked to changes in solar output. Will the output of the sun increase in the next 10 years? 100 years? 1,000 years? Or will it decrease? Are you sure?
- Are there any major volcanic eruptions scheduled in the next couple hundred years? If so, what impact will that have on the weather? Are you sure?
- The most potent greenhouse gas is not CO2 – not even close. We believe that the most potent greenhouse gas is, by far, water vapor. What factors control the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere? We have no idea.
- So, suppose we figured out how to install a thermostat on the planet. And we could make it cooler if we decided it was too warm. Or warmer if we decided it was too cold. Should we do that? If so, who’s in charge of the thermostat? Are you sure? We’ve spent enormous amounts of time & energy “improving” our environment via importing Japanese Beetles, or moving snakes to change squirrel populations, or protecting forests by putting out small fires, etc – our record is dismal. There are always unforeseen variables. As it turns out, the complexity of our environment is close to infinite, like the arrogance of those who claim to understand it all.
- Should people, who currently can’t figure out which bathroom to use, be in control of the entire planet? Are you sure?
Once my friends understand my concerns, they generally will at least cut me a little slack. And if I persist in looking at the problem logically, my friends will generally change the subject. Which is fine with me. Because when it comes to climate science (ie, understanding the whole world), I don’t know what I’m talking about. And neither do they. That is one thing I am absolutely sure of.
Published in General
I bet the a 1930s Oklahoma farmer got downright irritable from time to time.
Poetry
Skylab fell to earth in 1979 because of increased atmospheric temperatures (due to solar activity) causing the atmosphere to expand. So to monitor earths temperature: Launch a set of satellites into polar orbit. Design their surfaces to maximize friction with the upper atmosphere. (Astronautical wiffle balls?) Monitor them to determine how much their orbits decay and whether the rate of orbital decay is increasing or decreasing. The polar orbits would give a sample over time of atmospheric friction covering the earth as a whole. That would tell us whether the atmosphere is expanding, and if so by how much. Or else just monitor the space junk up there now. It should give us a pretty good indication. That is where I would put the thermometer.
A few years ago my wife and I spent an afternoon and evening visiting with her best friend from high school. Although she didn’t go into the field professionally, my wife’s friend majored in environmental or ecological studies in college. At one point the topic of global warming came up and the friend was kind of surprised that we weren’t believers in man-made catastrophic global warming. So I used these facts and others to explain my skepticism. My wife’s friend is no dummy, but she had never heard any arguments against MMCGW. She just figured skeptics were people who didn’t believe in science. One would think that in college-level courses on the environment, the professors would at least give some of the reasons that a non-stupid person might have for not accepting the prevailing theory. Evidently not.
Out here in the Silicon Valley, you know abutted along the San Francisco Bay, they keep building. I figure Google has done the calculation on their offices in Moutain View and will have moved by then. Apple HQ in Cupertino are higher up by a couple of 100 ft. These are the smart guys remember.
Well, thanks to sex ed, there’s a shortage of handy virgins …
That reminds me….. a few years ago I was on a cruise with family members. One of my nephews contended there was no such thing as a Cuban cigar anymore, as they had to be grown of Cuban seed, on Cuban soil, and rolled on the thigh of a virgin, -and there was no such thing as a virgin anymore. My brother-in-law began arguing heatedly that he could guarantee his daughter was a virgin. The two of them went round and round, with my nephew being silly and my brother-in-law defending the honor of his daughter. The argument kept getting hotter, -until I pointed out that his daughters status was irrelevant in this case, since she wasn’t a Cuban.
Apparently, today’s college students are not trained to use facts and logic to deal with reasoned arguments. It seems they’re taught, instead, to demand trigger warnings and safe rooms.
Butte.
I am disappointed that you aren’t concerned about the fact that the leftist climate agenda is to get more money and power for government. To me, that’s the bottom line. I tend to believe that global warming is a real threat, but I’m not an expert on climate science, either. But I believe it’s credible enough to want to do something about it. But one thing I am quite knowledgeable about is leftist behavior and the fact that giving leftists more revenue and more power is harmful to people and society. The historical record is quite clear on that. It poses a bigger threat to humankind than anything global warming can do.
Sire – we will have to cancel the parade of virgins in this year’s spring festival.
Why?
Well, one is too sick to march and the other refuses to parade by herself.
Seawriter
Here’s how I think of it. If we can’t even accurately MEASURE the world’s temperature(s), how are we supposed to be able to AFFECT it/them? World temperature measurements at various places are constantly being “revised”, indicating that they’re often wrong and being corrected. Sounds like a moving target to me.
This could get interesting.
We can and do measure temperatures around the world with a useful amount of accuracy.
We affect lots of things even though we can’t measure them. My cat affects its litter box without ever measuring it.
Butte, Montana, I suppose…
Re useful amount of accuracy: Imperfect measurements are made of industrial processes. Just because these measurements are difficult and subject to revision doesn’t mean we throw out the industrial revolution and go back to being hunter-gatherers.
I’m a little bit familiar with this when measuring temperatures while roasting coffee at home. Ideally, during the roast I’d know the temperature inside the beans and out, because inside is where the chemical changes take place. But that’s impractical using present-day technology. So what I do is stick a temperature probe inside the glass roasting chamber among the heap of beans, and use that as well as the temperature curve as a useful proxy for what’s going on inside the beans. It provides useful information to help me know when I should dial up the heat and when to stop the roast and begin cooling. Having this information helps me produce a tastier product.
Similarly with the earth. We stick probes in various places and we can argue about what it all means for the amount of heat energy over all the earth’s surface, but just because our knowledge is less than certain doesn’t mean we know nothing.
Funny on so many levels.
Not true. You have to just go younger.
Butte, North Dakota (a few miles from my birthplace home)
Perfect temperature? 75, with a light breeze. Oh, you meant worldwide? Ask the folks in East Anglia, they know everything.
According to NASA (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/), the last correct temperature (anomaly=0) happened in February 1982. I remember it well. Those were the days. We thought they’d never end. Sorry that you younger folks missed it. It was really great.
A breezy 72 degrees.
Engaging in argumentation requires facts. Why would they go to such extremes when they can simply accuse you of being a bad person. No need, then, to call non-believers stupid – just defective and morally corrupt (and racist…etc).
If you didn’t watch the video posted “If I Had Some Global Warming,” you should. Those guys are from Minnesota, not Alaska – but I think you’ll appreciate it.
To your point, though, I fear global cooling much more than global warming. When it gets warm, food supply goes up, and we get the Renaissance. When it gets cold, there is less arable land, food supply goes down, and people start killing each other over land and resources.
Despite all our discussion of potential ecological disasters, this post is the most terrifying thing I’ve read on this thread. She spent years of her life studying a topic and had never heard an opposing point of view.
Our educational system is not broken. It is designed to teach people what to think, not how to think. And it does that very well. (My kids saw Al Gore’s movie several times – in elementary school.) She paid a lot of money for that degree. And all she knows is the current party line. That’s just awful.
General Patton said, “If everybody’s thinking the same thing, then somebody’s not thinking.” These are important matters, and we’re not even thinking about them. We train people to not think about them. She paid for an advanced degree in not thinking about them. In fact, we criticize anyone who DOES think about them. That is terrifying.
Terrific post and responses-I’ve used several of those when debating family. I’d consider myself highly skeptical than Mankind is the primary driver of Climate Change (even that term vs. “Global Warming” indicates advocates are hedging). I think the Urban Heat Island Effect is a valid theory. I think there are genuine issues with temperature monitoring locations, using today’s world-wide weather monitoring network & working back hundreds/thousands of years and making inferences to ascertain temperature changes of tenths of degrees (trees rings? Conifers? Deciduous trees? What’s the global distribution and sample size of that tree ring study? How do they ascertain a thick growth ring w/ CO2 vs an optimal year for growth?).
Couple many of the questions raised here with the principle that “scientific” results should be reproducible and that many of our grant funded results and background information has “gone missing” – I’m leaning towards one of the “The Biggest Scams Ever” side.
I’m open to the idea, not afraid of the topic but let’s run the experiment & numbers again and again, and again…then reevaluate.
I use that question as a think starter, too. And as you suggested, some groups will benefit from a higher global temperature, others from a lower one.
In 1993, Japan had its smallest rice crop since the end of WWII and the government had to import 2.55 million tons of rice. The cause of this economic trouble for Japanese rice growers and consumers? An “unseasonably cool summer.”
Japanese rice has a Goldilocks temperature, just as California grapes have theirs and South Carolina peaches have another.
In every other field of science, the way you prove a hypothesis is by trying to DISPROVE it. You explore every other possibility. But in climate science, we ignore every other possibility. Like the lady who majored in ecology and thought she learned something. Hard to learn anything new when you think you already know it all. This is what Patton was talking about, and this is why he went out of his way to hire people who disagreed with him.
I read somewhere (how’s that for a bibliographical reference – sorry – can’t remember where) that Russia once invaded a neighboring country because they had late frosts two years in a row that cut their grain production severely. They were starving. From just two late frosts. It doesn’t take much to start a war sometimes…
In the November issue of Scientific American, there is an article entitled “5 Things We Know To Be True.” I thought the 5 things would be things like the earth is not flat, gravity, etc. Well, here are their 5.
Evolution happens. Homeopathy doesn’t work. Vaccines don’t cause autism. Aliens haven’t been here. And anthropogenic global warming is happening.
They go on to list a lot of the data, not including any computer modeling, but including this statement, “Likewise the carbon isotope and carbon budget data that prove that the carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere really does come from deforestation and burning of fossil fuels.” This is something I’ve never seen mentioned elsewhere and frankly gave me pause.
I remain a giant AGW skeptic. Even if it’s happening, I doubt there’s much we can do about it, and I really don’t think we should devote billions/trillions of our economies to trying. I’m in the camp that thinks learning to cope would be the better strategy.