2010, Hottest Year On Record Already, EVER

Despire the irony that Fox News and other peddlers of disinformation were out in full force in January and February claiming that climate change is a myth because half the US received heavy snowfall in two weeks of the year (!) the latest reports in from NASA confirm what many may have expected looking at GLOBAL average temperatures since year end.

And the data is not pretty.  Even though the Sun has been in a period of solar minimum (low sun activity, few sunspots, lower radiated heat to the Earth), for the first six months of this year we, as a planet, have recorded the hottest period on record, both since scientific records were kept, and also compared to modeled temperatures based on thousands of different sampling techniques (ice cores, tree rinks, sedimentation layers etc).

Coupled with a period of low sun activity, the continued trend to hotter and hotter atmospheric temperatures, during a period of increasing CO2 and CH4 concentrations in th atmosphere, clearly indicates the impact of human activity on the long term climate is direct and consequential.

Meanwhile, in addition to the high temperature trend, Rutgers University is tracking ice and snow coverage in the northern hemisphere.   This June represents yet another period of historically low snow and ice coveage in the entire northern hemisphere, compared to historic averages.

Looking at this from another angle, lets compare record temperatures in Spring and June 2010 for the United States.  Of the total record highs and record lows recorded for the month, record high temps are being recorded at a rate of 5 to 1 vs record lows, yet another indicator of unusual temperature increase, all in one very clear direction.   To be clear, this is comparing against normal June temperatures in the historic record.   Almost everywhere is showing unusualy high temperatures.

All very clear signs of a continuing, building rate of temperature increase, sending us toward a path of crop failure, food chain disruption, and ocean chemistry misbalance.  These should be sobering facts for everyone, and a clear sign that action is needed, and serious action, to change this trajectory before we drop off the chasm into a self-sustaining warming cycle pushed ever faster by thawing permafrost and increasing CO2 and CH4 releases into the atmophere.

Remember, this dramatic increase in temperatures in the last decade has occurred while the Sun has been in a period of very low activity.   This will not be helped by the Sun's movement into a period of high activity.  We are entering such a period later this year, and such periods last around 10 - 12 years...

Carbon Dioxide - How much is human activity adding to the atmosphere ?

Carbon Dioxide or CO2 is frequently mentioned as the primary catalyst for the observed warming of the planet over the past several decades, and mankind's CO2 emissions are pointed to as the primary factor in the increasing volume of CO2 in the atmosphere. However, how much have CO2 levels really increased and how much is human activity contributing to this increase ? Are there other sources ?

Measured CO2 emissions by human activity vs net atmospheric CO2

Comments on this graph :

• Total CO2 emissions per Dept of Energy : http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/txt/ptb1119.html
• Historic CO2 emissions calculated by tabulating coal, brown coal, peat, and crude oil production by nation and year, going back to 1751.  Data prior to this point assumed to be level (close to unmeasurably low) - spike in 18th C begun by coal and oil energy use.
• Atmospheric CO2 levels are measured by hundreds of monitoring stations across the globe. Independent measurements are also conducted by airplanes and satellites. data for periods prior to are determined from air bubbles trapped in polar ice cores. In pre-industrial times over the last 10,000 years, CO2 was relatively stable at around 275 to 285 parts per million. Over the last 250 years, atmospheric CO2 levels have increased by about 100 parts per million. Currently, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing by around 15 gigatonnes every year.

[ sources : ice core air bubble CO2 levels : http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/metadata/noaa-icecore-2419.html ; modern day CO2 atmospheric levels measured in Hawaii - http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ ; cumulative CO2 emissions data by human activity - http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/overview_2006.html ]

The Earth absorbs a large volume of this increase in CO2 pollution into natural absorption sinks (plant absorption and sea absorption), however increased absorption into the oceans in particular will lead to a change in the acidity in sea water, significantly harming sea life including plankton, a key supplier of oxygen in the atmosphere.

In addition to direct pollution from the burning of fossil fuels, deforrestation also reduces the planet's ability to naturally absorb CO2 - as such, deforrestation is another human activity which causes increased CO2 volume in the atmosphere.

What do we know about CO2 that makes it a greenhouse gas, a gas that by its very nature, traps heat ?  According to radiative physics and decades of laboratory measurements, increased CO2 in the atmosphere is expected to absorb more infrared radiation as it escapes back out to space.  In 1970, NASA launched the IRIS satellite measuring infrared spectra.  In 1996, the Japanese Space Agency launched the IMG satellite which recorded similar observations.  Both sets of data were compared to discern any changes in outgoing radiation over the 26 year period (Harries 2001).  What they found was a drop in outgoing radiation at the wavelength bands that greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane (CH4) absorb energy.  The change in outgoing radiation was consistent with theoretical expectations.  Thus the paper found "direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth's greenhouse effect". This result has been confirmed by subsequent papers using data from later satellites (Griggs 2004, Chen 2007).

Outgoing radiation is the reflected heat from the Sun, reflecting off of the Earth's surface back out into space.  As CO2 and related global warming gases absorb this radiated heat, preventing it from escaping, the atmosphere warms.  Warmer air warms the surface, melting ice and causing thermal expansion of water molecules in the Oceans.

This chart details the change between 1970 and 1998 (28 yrs) in absorption of normally reflected sunlight back into space.  As you can see there is less reflected energy since 1970 at exactly the wavelengths at which Carbon Dioxide and Methane absorb radated heat.  This is directly observed evidence of the increasing trapping of reflected sun light being caused by higher concentrations of CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere.

[ source : http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html ]

When greenhouse gases such as CO2 and CH4 absorb infrared radiation, the energy heats the atmosphere which in turn re-radiates infrared radiation in all directions. Some makes its way back to the earth's surface. Hence we expect to find more infrared radiation heading downwards from the upper atmosphere, back to the ground. Surface measurements from 1973 to 2008 find an increasing trend of infrared radiation returning to earth (Wang 2009).

This graph represents the amount of radiated heat energy at the surface, note the correlation between the peaks in radiated heat and the wavelengths at which carbon dioxide and methane generate radiated heat.  This is direct, measured, imperical evidence that CO2 and CH4 significantly add to radiative heat, warming the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth.

[ source : http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm ]

With more energy coming in than escaping back out to space, our planet accumulates heat. The Earth's total heat build up can be derived by adding up the heat content from the ocean, atmosphere, land and ice (Murphy 2009). Ocean heat content has been measured down to 3000 metres deep. Atmospheric heat content is calculated from the surface temperature record and heat capacity of the troposphere. Land and ice heat content (eg - the energy required to melt ice) are also included.

[ sources : http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD012105.shtml ; http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7198/abs/nature07080.html ]

From 1970 to 2003, Earth has been accumulating heat at a rate of 190,260 GigaWatts with the vast majority warming the oceans. Considering a typical nuclear power plant has an output of 1 GigaWatt, imagine 190,000 nuclear power plants pouring their energy output directly into our oceans. What about after 2003? A map of of ocean heat from 2003 to 2008 was constructed from ocean heat measurements down to 2000 metres deep (von Schuckmann 2009). Globally, the oceans have continued to accumulate heat to the end of 2008 at a rate of 0.77 ± 0.11 Wm?2, consistent with other determinations of the planet's energy imbalance (Hansen 2005, Trenberth 2009). The planet continues to accumulate heat.

Warmer oceans will lead to higher precipition and more storms as more and more water vapor enters the atmosphere.   Water vapor is also a significant heat trapping agent.

[ source : http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008BAMS2634.1 ]

So, we have established CO2 emissions by human activity are up significantly.  We have determined there is significantly more CO2 entering the atmosphere and the Earth is absorbing CO2 at similar rates to the past.  We have determined that CO2 and CH4 interfere with the reflection of sunlight back into space, trapping the heat and radiating it in all directions.   We have measurements of higher radiated heat at the wavelengths of CO2 and CH4, we have measurements of rising temperatures across the board, with the highest in the oceans.    We anticipate more water vapor to enter the atmosphere, a feedback loop which will accelerate warming and also cause more storms such as cyclons and hurricanes, localized flooding and changes in participation leading to droughts in some areas and high precipition in other areas.

So we see a direct line of evidence that we're causing global warming. Human CO2 emissions far outstrip the rise in CO2 levels. The enhanced greenhouse effect is confirmed by satellite and surface measurements. The planet's energy imbalance is confirmed by summations of the planet's total heat content and ocean heat measurements.

Its the Sun, stupid ! or is it ?

In 2007, Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia issued a controversial theory suggesting that changes in the Sun's activity were the cause for global warming and not raising levels of greenhouse gases such as CO2.   As evidence, Abdussamatov pointed to warming on Mars reflected in decreasing carbon dioxide ice caps on the poles of Mars over a 3 martian year period.  

Abdussmatov took this evidance and suggested that planetary warming is uniform across the solar system and is a product of solar activity.   However, this is not at all the case.   Indeed, for the past 35 years the Sun has actualy been in a slight cooling phase, generating slightly less heat, not more.  The past 10 years have also been in an unusualy long solar minimum period, a period in which solar flare and sunspot activity is lower than average.  Note that this same period also represents one of the hottest decades in recorded history since mankind has been measuring temperatures.

Therefore, it is clear that something interesting is happening on Mars, but it is not a result of higher solar activity and does not explain the global warming effect we are experiencing on Earth.

Graph : Global Average Earth Temperature (RED) and Sun Activity / Radiated Heat (BLUE)

Note that solar activity does cause increases in atmospheric temperaters on Earth, this is a given, however, the pronounced global warming effect we have been tracking since the mid 20th Century does not reflect any increase in solar activity, indeed, most of Earth's recent warming occurred while the Sun was in a cooling phase.  The Sun is not the driving factor in warming (currently), however, when the Sun does enter a new highly active (Solar Maximum) phase, the effects of greenhouse gas driven global warming will be accelerated and magnified by the increased warming from the Sun.  We should be entering a period of solar maximum very soon.

[ sources (controversial theory and skeptics) : http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html ; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3869753.stm ]


[ sources (refuting points) : http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm ; http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/464/2094/1387.abstract ; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009JGRD..11414101B ; http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0901/0901.0515v1.pdf ; http://www.skepticalscience.com/acrim-pmod-sun-getting-hotter.htm ]

UN underestimating global warming impacts

Scientific American has been writing some excellent articles on the science behind climate change and the importance of tackling humanity's contribution to CO2 levels as urgently as possible.  This month they bring us a report from the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.   James McCarthy of the Harvard Medical School Center for Health and Global Environment provided a detailed analysis of UN data in comparison to measured, observable climate change.  To date, the UN models are proving to be highly conservative, underestimating the effects of global warming.   Notably, these UN models are the very data that Climategate supposedly called into question as worst case scenarios...

“If you were to go back and map the IPCC projection for sea level rise and temperature in 1990, look at it in 1995, look at it in 2000. In retrospect you would find that they were conservative. So we talk about errors. If you were to do two ledgers—here are IPCC overestimates, here are IPCC underestimates—over the 20 or so years that these assessments have been running, the underestimate ledger would be much larger than the overestimate. Even with glitches—clearly erroneous editing or sloppy editing that led to these erroneous statements that got us in trouble recently.”



It is unfortunate but our media, notably television media, will run with the initial headline of questions over the accuracy of some sources of UN climate data due to the questionable commentary in some emails from one University (out of hundreds) working on the UN's climate change analysis, but that same media remains mute when it becomes apparent that even so, the UN climate change data is still significantly underestimating the rate of warming.   This is significant, and the public at large remains oblivious to the fact that climate change data is holding together, and in most cases, the forecasts previously derided are proving to have been best case scenarios.

[source : http://www.scientificamerican.com/ ]

On the subject of climategate, a significant amount of misinformation has been spread regarding the accuracy of climate data and models.   The following video by Peter Sinclair provides a good summary of the degree of misinformation being perpetuated in the mainstream media and via chain emails regarding climategate.   A lot of cherry picking of sentences is leading to a lot of intentionally out of context interpretations of scientific analysis.



[referenced article : An imperative for climate change planning : tracking earth's global energy ]

Updated data from NOAA, the National Oceanic & Atmosphere Administration

NOAA has a long and respected history for impartial and reliable science, seving both the US Government and marine based industry with weather and climate research and modeling. NOAA is an excellent resource for raw data concerning climate trend in North America. I will present several NOAA graphs here which provide a good general picture of the trend of key climate parameters, underlying change already underway.

However, before we get to the charts, I must make an important point on how scientific charts should be interpreted. There has been much deliberate confusion of the public recently by climate deniers claiming that over a certain period, warming has stop, or even, reversed. This conclusion is reached by cheating the data. Take any one point in a bar chart for example and compare to another. If you cherry pick the two dates to arrive at a particular conclusion, you can try to pick, for example, an unusually hot year 10 or 20 years ago, and compare to a normal recent year. This trick gives the illusion that warming is not occurring and is deliberately used to cause confusion in the public, reducing interest in regulating emissions and tackling climate change.

As with any long term data, these charts should be viewed by looking at the general average trend over many years. When looked at in this manner, the data is very strongely in favor of the conclusions climate scientists have reached - we are approaching a very dangerous climate event.

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[source : http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/2009/articles/climate-change-global-temperature ]

This chart depicts the trend in global average temperates from 1880 to 2009. These temperature readings are an average of all global temperates for each year, readings taken from all over the globe. In this time period although individual spikes and dips show short term variability, the trend is crystal clear, a notable acceleration in total world average temperate since the early 1970s. We are at least forty years into this trend, if you ignore the beginning warming in the 1930s and 1940s.

This is not a model, these are real measured temperatures from weather readings around the world, averaged to an average yearly temp and then plotted for this timeline. The trend is significant.

The next chart we should look at infers the most probable cause of this warming trend - rapidly building levels of atmospheric gases which are scientifically proven to cause "greenhouse" warming effects when they accumulate to sufficient volume. The ability of these gases to cause a warming event are solid concluded science, there is no scientific debate on this. The debate concerns how much of an effect, how rapid the effect builds, and how quickly it can be turned around.

For the last 50 years, global temperatures rose at an average rate of about
0.13c (around one quarter degree Fahrenheit) per decade - almost twice as fast
as the 0.07c per decade increase observed over the previous half-century.
In the next 20 years, scientists project that global average temperature will
rise by around 0.2c (about one-third of a degree Fahrenheit) per
decade.

The most abundant greenhouse gas (but not the most dangerous per part per million) is of course Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Carbon Dioxide is produced by living organisms, both animal and plant, through geophysical processes, and human activity such as buring fossil fuels. The Earth has a natural baseline balance, a natural level of CO2, Nitrogen and Oxygen levels which have been relatively stable prior to the 20th Century for the entire time period in which human civilization has been present. Large scale change in the make up of our atmosphere (approx 4 miles thick before you reach space) would have a significant impact on the long term balance of life on this planet. Already, we have seen long drought periods in various areas of the planet including the American southwest, Australia and the African continent. These drought areas are growing and already diminishing the available farmland for our food needs (both cattle and produce farming).

This graph indicates a clear and sustained increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide in the analysis period of 1958 to 2008.  The warming effect of CO2 is proven settled science.

The vast majority of climate scientists are concerned that the dramatic rise in carbon dioxide is causing the planet to warm. Likely consequences of global warming include sea level rise, shifting precipitation patterns, expansion of areas affected by drought, increasing numbers of severe heat waves, and more intense precipitation events.
Scientists are also concerned that carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean from the atmosphere is increasing the acidity of seawater. This change in ocean chemistry interferes with the ability of marine plants and animals to build their shells, ultimately threatening a reorganization of the entire marine food chain, which could lead to a mass extinction event.

CO2 is a global heating gas (GHG).  When you increase levels of GHGs you increase the heat of a planet. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, global CO2 levels have increased 25%.  For further information on the proven science behind greenhouse effect and CO2, please take a look at this article : 

[article : A Hyperlinked History of Climate Change Science ]

The Greenhouse Effect :





This substantial increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere can be traced back to several changes in human behavior in the 19th and 20th centuries, namely deforestation (cutting down trees which naturally absorb CO2 and produce Oxygen) and the increasing rates at which we are mining and burning fossi fuels (coal, gas, oil).   The following illustration summarizes the breakdown of CO2 increases by source and their impact.

[source : http://unfccc.int/essential_background/feeling_the_heat/items/2903.php ]




In addition to warming the atmosphere, increased CO2 levels are also absorbed into the world's oceans.   High levels of CO2 absorption will eventually cause the acidity of the oceans to increase.   Critical elements of the ocean sea chain including plankton and shellfish are highly impacted by the pH of the water, increases in acidity would significantly reduce the levels of plankton and shellfish in the oceans, reducing food supplies for significant portions of the marine food chain.   More troubling still, plankton are one of the largest producers of atmospheric oxygen in the world.   Indeed, the original source of atmospheric oxygen in the early years of the evolution of life on Earth was indeed from early plankton organisms.

Please refer to the following article (PDF) by the NOAA on ocean acidification :

[article : Carbon Dioxide and Our Ocean Legacy ]


Ocean Acidification: Anthropogenic, Carbon dioxide, Earth's atmosphere, PH, Biological pump, Carbon sink, Carbonate compensation depth, Continental shelf ... Ocean Data Analysis Project, Solubility pump

Finally, lets take a look at global sea level trends.  Warming of the atmosphere, the oceans and the surface of the planet is resulting in the release of ice from glaciers, the arctic pack, antartica and the melting of snows that usually remain in place year round.  All of this melted ice and snow flows as water back into the oceans resulting in more water volume.  Just as adding water to a bath tub increases its level, adding large volumes of water to the oceans has the same effect.    The following graph represents sea level readings at New York from 1920 to 2009, based on readings from the same tide gauge station. 



Again we have a very clear upward trend in sea levels.   Its notable that warming has accelerated in this same window and acceleration is expected to increase rate further as warming begins to release other greenhouse gases (most notably, methane trapped in frozen soils in Siberia, Scandinavia and northern Canadian territories.  Methane is a far more dangerous gas than CO2 in terms of warming effect).

Rising sea levels present a significant risk of flooding for millions of people around the globe.   The current predicted sea level change assuming moderate to little reduction in CO2 pollution would result in the permanent flooding of lands currently occupied by millions :

A recent Nature study suggested that Greenland's ice sheet will begin to melt if the temperature there rises by 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit). That is something many scientists think is likely to happen in another hundred years.   The complete melting of Greenland would raise sea levels by 7 meters (23 feet). But even a partial melting would cause a one-meter (three-foot) rise. Such a rise would have a devastating impact on low-lying island countries, such as the Indian Ocean's Maldives, which would be entirely submerged.


Densely populated areas like the Nile Delta and parts of Bangladesh would become uninhabitable, potentially driving hundreds of millions of people from their land.  A one-meter sea level rise would wreak particular havoc on the Gulf Coast and eastern seaboard of the United States.   "No one will be free from this," said Overpeck, whose maps show that every U.S. East Coast city from Boston to Miami would be swamped. A one-meter sea rise in New Orleans, Overpeck said, would mean "no more Mardi Gras."

[source : http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0420_040420_earthday_2.html ]

To sum up, the NOAA is on the record with hard imperical data confirming warming, confirming rising CO2 levels are the prime source, confirming human activity is the primary factor in the release of this CO2, and confirming sea level increases are on a dangerous trajectory.   A quote from nature sums up where we are quite succinctly :

"Is society aware of the seriousness of climate warning? I don't think so," said Marianne Douglas, a geology professor at the University of Toronto. "If we were, we'd all be leading our lives differently. We'd see a society that embraced alternative sources of energy, with less dependency on fossil fuels."   Overpeck says passing on the problem of global warming to future generations is like ignoring a government budget deficit. "Except with the deficit, there are economic mechanisms that could be put in place to get out of the large deficit," he said. "With sea level rise, there's really no technological way to put the ice back on Greenland."