Earth and paleo-climate scientist at ANU, Dr Andrew Glikson writes: The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for January–October 2010 was +0.63°C above the 20th century average of 14.1°C and tied with 1998 as the warmest January–October period on record, according to new report State of the Climate – Global Analysis, October 2010.
Figure 1: Temperature anomalies October 2010 with respect to October periods 1961-1990
The data indicate mean temperature changes in the Arctic of up to +5oC relative to the 1961-1990 base period, leading to progressive loss of Greenland ice sheet and Arctic sea ice, which in October 2010 was 17% less than during October periods of 1979-2000.
The report was published by National Climatic Data Centre (NCDC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Consistent with elevated radiative forcing by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to high temperatures, strong evaporation and abrupt precipitation events, 2010 has seen a string of extreme weather events, including heat waves and fires (Russia), severe droughts (Brazil, Mexico), cyclones (USA, Caribbean) and floods (Pakistan, western China, Australia).
Figure 2: Selected significant climate anomalies and events, October, 2010
That extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and intensity is shown in figure 3, showing the number of cyclones increased by a factor of about 2 and floods by a factor of about 3.
Figure 3: Trends in climate disasters compared with earthquakes
showing tripling of the annual frequency of floods and doubling of frequency of cyclones.
Mean global high temperatures persisted despite a prevalence of La-Nina conditions, which resulted in below-average temperatures across the equatorial Pacific.
Thanks to the surrounding oceans Australia has been mostly benign in terms of temperature. The decrease in mean temperatures in Australia (Figure 1) is related to the increased rainfall, clouding and evaporation/cooling effects. For Australia the year 2010 (to November) ranks in the top 10 for rainfall due to a confluence of seasonal drivers – ENSO and IOD.
Much of the rainfall occurred as abrupt precipitation events, less beneficial and often destructive as compared with gentler Mediterranean-type precipitation. A significant drying up continues in southwestern Australia, which had record low winter season rainfall, continuing a trend that began around the 1970s. This year SW WA had little inflows into its dams.
The rise in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events around the world implies models suggesting gradual climate transitions, such as projected by the IPCC-2007, require revision in terms of the effects of tipping points, consistent with recent research.
“The growth rate in emissions is going to make it increasingly difficult for us to constrain climate change to levels of around 2 degrees of warming above the pre-industrial temperatures,” says a new report by the Global Carbon Project
According to Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, +2 degrees may result in tipping points.
Ignoring reports by the world’s major climate science organizations (NASA/GISS, NCDC, Hadley-Met, Potsdam, BOM, CSIRO), governments continue to consider the issue almost exclusively in economic dollar terms, the ultimate Faustian bargain.
Most are oblivious to the calamitous consequences of inaction or of limited action falling short of arresting climate change. Current negotiations regarding climate mitigation and debates regarding carbon tax versus CPRS schemes, ignore the implications of the rise in extreme weather events.
Extensive media cover-up, coupled with well funded climate denial campaigns, are on the rise. Emergency climate mitigation measures, including draw-down of atmospheric CO2 using soil biochar, chemical sequestration and extensive reforestation, may have a chance of slowing runaway global warming.
21 Comments
Right! Don’t buy it. Europe and Russia had one of their coldest winters on record as did we in Oz and this December seems to be stacking up the same way for the Europeans from what I am being told by the locals. Maybe other places were very very hot..I heard there is a “recalibration” of the data going on – something to do with new sensors …sounds like cooking the books to me. But what would a mere skeptic know?
So…. RW, what you’re suggesting is that your anecdotal evidence is more useful than satellite records?
Have a look at the graphic BTW; there are a few little blue dots there Richard, supporting your ‘theory’ that it was a cold winter. I’m no scientist (I am actually, but what ever) but there seem to be a lot more red dots than blue ones. So the average of these was probably above average then?
I agree we are not all scientists and as best I can judge, throughout history scientists have been getting it wrong as much as non scientists or scientists from disciplines other than the one under question. Anyway we are talking religion here not science so it is really a question of whose God is the most powerful.
I guess my “anecdotes” were swayed slightly by this graphic as well as a myriad of personal prejudices. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/antarctic-ice-above-normal-83-of-the-time-since-mid-2007/
RW
You need to keep an eye on the price of cherries because cherry picking is going to be an expensive exercise this year.
Andrew
A neat summary but, by dog, how depressment.
The ‘research’ link above is not working. Have you submitted this piece to ‘The Australian’? Apparently the editor is a very strong supporter of AGW climate science.
Lemmings: a species of rodent that does not throw itself over cliffs.
Homo Sapiens: a species of primate that does.
RW,
I would have thought a mere sceptic would get better data to base their opinions on.
A denier, on the other hand, would grab anecdotal evidence and cherry pick a few facts to support their arguments. Use unreliable sources such as ‘I am being told by the locals’ and allude to nefarious activity like ‘I heard there is a “recalibration” of the data going on’ to confuse the issue.
Now, which would you be?
RW throughout history scientists have been getting it wrong as much as non scientists or scientists from disciplines other than the one under question What are you talking about?
Let me just remind you that all the advances in the last couple of centuries are due to scientists getting it right, Radio, computers, MRI, radar, laser, optics, electricity, materials, metallurgy, vaccines and the list goes on.
All this came from the hard work and brains of scientists, so when scientists are telling you something about climate, perhaps you should listen and learn.
Gee! You got me there! I have obviously got it all wrong. Maybe you could suggest a re-education camp I could attend.
My definition of science is that you have ideas that you can go out and test with the view to disproving them and if eventually you succeed you move forward. Today no one can afford to disprove his ideas because he will lose his private foundation grants predicated on continuing success of the concept first proposed. Where is the motivation to challenge your own work and to do anything but to protect your faulty thinking. So your response is invariably to make personal attacks against those challenging your notion?
Now let me share some of the examples of how this corporatised approach to science has fouled our lives:.. such great scientific discoveries and cover-ups like…
1) Thalidomide – governments assured us it was safe.
2) APC powders – no worries here!
3) Vaccines: The gold standard of medical science is the double blind crossover placebo study. This test has never been performed on any vaccine currently licensed in Australia. In an astounding leap of logic, contrary to all rules of science, vaccines are assumed to be safe and effective and all arms of the states control grid come out in force to rail against any who may suggest we withhold vaccinations for the purposes of testing them. The scandal yet to break will relate to mercury and other toxic metal preservatives used in bulk batched vaccines alog with the use of live viruses and contaminated matter. Of course the government and its agents assure us they are safe and any questioning is the result of insanity.
4) Sir Isaac Newton’s idea that space is completely transparent to light in the same way that space is completely transparent to gravity also endorsed by Rene Descartes i.e. part of a Cartesian view of the universe that human vision goes unimpeded in some sense. And so you could find the structure of the stellar system simply by counting stars. That idea lasted into the 20th century influencing greatly the calibration of how bright certain kinds of variable stars are and that in turn led to incorrect distance scales for the galaxy and the universe and subsequently to a great underestimate of the age of the universe.
5) The fact that our education system is continually tampered with to the detriment of our children simply because some wiseass has convinced doctrinaire politicians that his new largely untested learning theory fits the political agenda better.
6) The dangers to health and appalling lack of longitudinal studies regarding the many products that rely on microwave signalling.
7) The destruction rather than the enhancement of human society through technology
9) The validity of so called “scientific studies” on the safety of a innumerable agricultural and industrial chemicals later found to be inadequate.
10) The fact that according to the 2008 auditors general report medical research grants in this country were given out to one’s mates in 20% of cases and one’s close colleagues in 40% of cases.
11) And if course, science’s dirtiest secret: The “scientific method” of testing hypotheses by statistical analysis stands on a flimsy foundation. Statistical tests are supposed to guide scientists in judging whether an experimental result reflects some real effect or is merely a random fluke, but the standard methods mix mutually inconsistent philosophies and offer no meaningful basis for making such decisions. Even when performed correctly, statistical tests are widely misunderstood and frequently misinterpreted. As a result, countless conclusions in the scientific literature are erroneous, and tests of medical dangers or treatments are often contradictory and confusing.
12) If you are not in agreement with the latest climate religion then you are unlikely to receive grants from tax exempt foundations or the various scientific bodies subsequently influenced by them.
Now let give some historical examples of scientific error usually reinforced by the prevailing zeitgeist:
1) Alchemy: The idea of morphing lead into gold was de rigeur in medaeval times.
2) Heavier objects fall faster: Today, we all know that they don’t, but Aristotle thought they did.
3) Phlogiston: Proposed in 1667 by Johann Joachim Becher, was another element to add to the list (earth, water, air, fire and sometimes ether); it wasn’t fire itself, but the stuff fire was made of. All combustible objects contained this stuff according to Becher, and they released it when they burned.
4) Hygiene as a factor in infection. Doctors ignored what a Hungarian doctor proved about simple hand washing between deliveries for more than 80 years before finally relenting after millions of women had died in childbirth. Up until the late 19th century, doctors didn’t really see the need to wash their hands before picking up a scalpel. The result? A lot of gangrene.
5) The Atom Is the Smallest Particle in Existence: It wasn’t until the early 20th century, when physicists like J.J. Thompson, Ernest Rutherford, James Chadwick and Neils Bohr came along, that we started to sort out the basics of particle physics: protons, neutrons and electrons and how they make an atom what it is. Since then, we’ve come a long way: on to charmed quarks and Higgs bosons, anti-electrons and muon neutrinos.
6) DNA: Not So Important: Although DNA was discovered in 1869 for a long time it was unappreciated. It wasn’t until Watson and Crick published their all-important double-helical model of the structure of DNA in 1953 that biologists finally started to understand how such a simple molecule could do so much.
7) The Earth is the centre of the universe: Second-century astronomer Ptolemy’s Earth-centered model of the solar system didn’t just stay in vogue for 20 or 30 years; it stuck around for a millennium and then some. It wasn’t until almost 1,400 years later that Copernicus published his heliocentric model in 1543. Copernicus wasn’t the first to suggest that the we orbited the sun, but his theory was the first to gain traction. He and Gallileo went against the sanctioned science because they had been told that all the science had been done so they couldn’t possibly be right.
Ninety years after its publication, the Catholic Church was still clinging to the idea that we are at the center of it all and duking it out with Galileo over his defense of the Copernican view. Old habits die hard.
9) Blood and Circulation: Back in ancient Greece, you could be a doctor and have no idea how important the heart was. Doctors like second-century Greek physician Galen believed that the liver and not the heart circulated blood along with bile and phlegm. The heart on the other hand circulated “vital spirit”(whatever that is).
Galen hypothesized that the blood moved in a back-and-forth motion and was consumed by the organs as fuel and it wasn’t until 1628 that English physician William Harvey explained the heart in “An Anatomical Study of the Motion of the Heart and of the Blood in Animals”.
So scientists don’t always get it right as best I can see but I do detect a little authoritarianism in the air. You should enjoy the highly dangerous airport x-ray scanners due for introduction next year “making us safe from terrorists” who will no doubt choose to drive or boat to their destinations.
RW, thanks for making my point. Those problems you alluded to were exposed by the hard work of scientists, often battling the estblished views. More or less, what scientists are trying to do with global warming, an idea so terrifying that most people would grab at any mis-interpretation of information so they can believe it is not happening.
I didn’t say advancement was necessarily good for humanity (look at atomic research, biological weapons research etc), even the evidence and explanation of why the earth is heating is not necessarily good news for many people, but at least we are in a position to make informed decisions.
As for you, I think you would benefit from a little re-education. What has been provided to you in the past has been inadequate to be able to make an informed decision because you cannot understand or evaluate the information provided to you properly.
Thanks for that. And here was I thinking they were simply a bunch of “useful idiots” as Lenin called them, indirectly under the thumb of the power elite, providing justification for the next stage of the global wealth pillage in which oil and coal are replaced by natural gas and uranium and all funded through carbon taxes by the unsuspecting masses. You won’t see clean energy any time soon. Just listen to the cr@p going on about uranium all of a sudden as if it is our only option. If France is anything to go by, this highly subsidized and unstable energy source is soon to become a serious option for most of the world despite its dangers. Expect soon to receive a dose of collective amnesia via the Ministry of Truth about Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and the constant leaks occurring in France; and go headlong into it, right!
Natural gas and uranium got it! Neither wind nor solar, geothermal nor electro-magnetic, neither zero point energy nor anything else that may be out there. Not in the next fifty years at any rate.
@Boerwar
Thanks for pointing out that the research links were incorrect, that was my fault. It is now updated with the two correct links. Thank you.
9 Richard Wilson
Firstly, Thalidomide was never approved for human use in the USA for morning sickness because they did not feel it had undergone sufficient testing. It was approved in Australia unfortunately. Interestingly in the years since it was banned for this use all those terrible “scientists” have actually found that it does have many other important uses – such as leprosy and myeloma (but obviously not to be used in women of child-bearing age).
Many of the things you are ranting about (how this was wrong etc) have only been shown to be wrong by further research by scientists. The Earth wasn’t shown to go around the sun by a show of hands or an opinion poll.
I suggest if you have firm scientific evidence that global temperatures are not slowly increasing you should submit it to as many scientific journals as possible. There could actually be a Nobel Prize in it for you. I am serious.
@ the Rocket
My point is that science doesn’t get it right the first time, or even the tenth time and then move on. Science is a continuing process of discovery and learning. Yet the way the global warming debate is conducted, it assumes the science has been done, the debate is now over and if you do not agree or dare to question you are labeled a heretic and should be burned at the stake. There is nothing new here but it is particularly galling when people in the name of science tell you to shut up for trying to protect the scientific process. Science is a continuous process – not necessary linear but certainly continuous.. in fact the problem with the 21st century banker driven welfare warfare worldview is its insistence on viewng everything as a linear progression. I think it came from the idea that because we appear to age in a linear way, we believe intuitively therefore that everything must behave in a linear fashion.
But even the aging process may be reversible if we can believe that latest work with mice out of Harvard and it may be that time is the same dimension as space if we follow the Cornbell work on perception of the future. Discovery and learning I believe are organic not linear and perhaos for the past 500 years we have got the notion of how the universe operates all wrong.
I resent the argument put by some that the science has been done on climate change, we know the story and now its over to the international bankers to collect taxes for the UN and for uranium and natural gas to replace oil and coal as our best immediate option. Sorry!
You will have a hard time convincing anyone of that in Europe right now as they experience the coldest start to December in decades! Who was it in Britain who said “Children in the future won’t know what snow looks like” ?
JFPE@15, I agree individual perceptions are very hard to overcome. Many people in Melbourne think that we have had an exceptionally wet year. They are surprised that they we have just had our long term average rainfall, but because of the years of drought it seems very wet.
I must give you credit by cherry picking the temperature data from Europe as proof postitive the world isn’t warming (although I sense that you would like to make that conclusion). Best to leave that sort of cherry picked evidence to a brains trust like Andrew Bolt and his unthinking readership.
RW you are correct that science is never finished, but there comes a point that the evidence is so overwhelming that you have ideas that are hard to dispute. No one argues the world is flat, or the Sun revolves around the Earth anymore and anyone in their right mind accept that.
Similarly with AGW, the evidence keeps coming in supporting the conclusion that humanity is, through our actions, causing the planet to warm. I guess the pressure this time around is that some of the predicted outcomes (which may or may not happen) are so dire that there is pressure to do something to stop the warming. The risk of waiting for more and more evidence that proves the same thing, means we loosing our opportunity to do something about it.
PeeBee, i haven’t read Bolty’s very informative column today, i just googled Northern Europe freezes and wanted to see what came up. Yep, they’re having a tough time of it over there as several brass monkey’s are in search of their appendages as we speak. I wouldn’t leave anything for the brains trust who think we’re all going to fry by next Tuesday! We here in Melbourne have a little more to worry about, like this developing white elephant called the desal plant!
Ah Pee Bee, it’ll be crisis, crisis global freeze, mayday mayday another squeeze! next year and still our fault! Temperatures change and always have and as far as I can divine by as much as 2 degrees if not more,and one thing for sure if we wipe ourselves out, the planet will still be here. It isnt going anywhere. Read “Propaganda” by Edward L Bernays – Freud’s nephew and father of public relations – your the target!
RW, who are you referring to ‘who think we’re all going to fry by next Tuesday’? No sensible person would say that, so who are you talking about?
I agree with you that the world has been warmer by 2 degrees in the past, but that was before modern man was on the planet. Now there are close to 7 billion of us, and we are dependant on a benign climate to produce enough food to feed ourselves. Two degrees warmer will make farming a lot more difficult.
@RW
I think you might be onto something.
Shakespeare had it wrong: it should have been “First, let’s kill all the scientists”!
It’s clearly all a plot. Everyone’s got everything wrong. Education’s stuffed, the ancient greek philosophers who didn’t bother experimenting got it wrong but were presumably on the right track, because if you follow scientific method in any way you’re clearly on the wrong track. Except when you get it right.
So how come you’re so sure that these ideas about quarks and things and good old Neils Bohr are right ? Don’t you realise this is just part of the Thetan plot to undermine our secure ideas about the universe? How dare you give any credence to all that guff, and say the earlier guys got it all wrong? Why are you listening to these scientists who say there are smaller things than atoms anyway, when all they’re after is the loads of research money we throw at them in heaps from our taxes? (And BTW what’s a Higgs boson? Do you know anyone who’s seen one of those? Don’t you know how much money they’re paying out to find one of those?)
And why haven’t you revealed who’s hiding all the smallpox cases away these days, pretending that vaccination somehow works ?
Of course, the trouble with all these climate scientist guys is that they keep on disagreeing with each other, which just proves that they’re wrong, which then proves they’re all in a plot to agree with each other, except when they disagree with each other and prove each other wrong, and that proves you right.
Have I got that right ?
But then, maybe you’re right about Niels Bohr and his mate and the world is full of uncertainty and stuff. But we can’t be sure about that, because they had something to do with scientists, who get things wrong.
Good of you to come in this morning. Take two of these green ones in the morning with water, and the red one at night before bed.
NEXT please, nurse !