Another alarmist attempt to vilify CO2
image source: globalwarmthblog.wordpress.com
Below is a critique of “Record-Setting Ocean Warmth Continued in 2019” by Cheng et al., released January 2020. Advances In Atmospheric Sciences, vol. 37, February 2020, 137–142.
The captioned publication was released this month (January 2020) and swiftly caused a media stir, for example: www.theguardian.com
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The heat in the world’s oceans reached a new record level in 2019, showing “irrefutable and accelerating” heating of the planet. Photograph: Modis/Terra/Nasa The heat in the world’s oceans …
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The 6-page article in question, by Cheng and 13 others, including Michael E. Mann, is free to download here …
https://link.springer.com/
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Since a single annual OHC value can be impacted by internal variabilities (i.e., El Niño–Southern Oscillation, ENSO) or instrumental errors, long-term trends are much more important than any individual year for showing climate change; and
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Notably, five of the authors co-wrote one or more reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; L = lead author; C = contributing author): Cheng (L), Trenberth (L), Fasullo (C), Boyer (C), Mann (L). Another was an IPCC expert reviewer (Chen).
I have three main criticisms of Cheng et al.: 1) misleading phraseology; 2) uncritical faith in the IPCC’s judgment; and 3) failure to place the ultra-brief time-span of their data (64 years) in the context of geological time (4.5 billion years). These defects are dealt with in turn below.
1. Incorrect and very misleading opening statement
The Cheng et al. study covers just 64 years, 1955-2019. However, in their very first paragraph Cheng et al. say: “These data reveal that the world’s oceans … in 2019 were the warmest in recorded human history” (my emphasis). This statement was presumably intended to mean “warmest since humans began reliably measuring ocean temperature” about 65 years ago but, as written, implies the last 5,000 years or so (e.g. Wikipedia “Recorded history”). It is concerning, especially given the enormity of the subject (see my ‘Concluding remark’ below), that none of the 14 authors nor the editor noticed this glaring exaggeration.
Even 5,000 years, though, is miniscule compared to Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history (Section 3 below).
2. Assumption that the IPCC is impartial, competent, and correct in its belief (sic) that CO2 caused modern global warming
A) IPCC fully competent?
Unfortunately the IPCC does not choose its authors based purely on merit. Instead, as a political organisation (of the United Nations), they adhere to quotas, i.e. male-female, old-young, developed-developing nations:
https://www.ipcc.ch/2018/04/
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GENEVA, April 6 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has invited 721 experts from 90 countries to participate in the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) as Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors and Review Editors.
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Moreover, author teams of IPCC’s 2013/14 report and its upcoming 2022 report, each several hundreds strong, lack the very specialists most qualified to evaluate modern global warming in the light of Earth’s 4.5 billion years of climate history, namely geologists:
https://archive.ipcc.ch/
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Working Group I contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6-WG1) Chapter ATLAS: ATLAS
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https://archive.ipcc.ch/
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Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6-WG2) Chapter 1: Point of departure and key concepts
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https://archive.ipcc.ch/
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Filter: All CLA LA RE Select Report/Chapter Search by Report Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (beta version) …
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https://archive.ipcc.ch/
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Working Group III contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6-WG3) Chapter 1: Introduction and Framing
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A ‘read’ is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text.
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IPCC Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change next report (AR6, due 2022) − 784 authors, yes 784, but again NO geologists?!
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B) IPCC impartial?
From its initiation (1988) the IPCC was arguably mandated to prove man-made global warming:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations that is dedicated to providing the world with objective, scientific information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of the risk of human-induced climate change, its natural, political, and economic impacts and risks, and possible response options.
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http://
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The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) was created by a group of scientists concerned about flaws in the organization and procedures of another organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), so it is necessary and appropriate that those flaws be presented here.
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If so, a strong intrinsic bias is guaranteed.
C) CO2 at fault?
Cheng et al., showing complete faith in IPCC interpretations, and ignoring the large (and growing) literature contradicting the IPCC, boldly state: “Human-emitted greenhouse gases (GHGs) have resulted in a long-term and unequivocal warming of the planet (IPCC, 2019)”; and “There are no reasonable alternatives aside from anthropogenic emissions of heat-trapping gases (IPCC, 2001, 2007, 2013, 2019; USGCRP, 2017).”
No educated person denies global warming: it’s been reliably measured by thermometers since 1850:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/
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Global average temperature series Combined land-surface air temperature and sea-surface temperature. The black line shows the global annual average near-surface temperature anomalies since 1850 from the HadCRUT4 dataset (data here in this format).The grey area shows the 95% confidence range on the annual averages.
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For 100 years before that, less reliable thermometer readings are available, back to 1750:
http://berkeleyearth.org/
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Our ongoing research includes the study of climate variability, extreme events, and the role of the oceans. View a three page summary of our initial project objectives and early results.A two page summary of our results to date, aimed primarily at the media, is available by clicking here.More technical results, meant primarily for scientists, are presented below.
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Global warming is not new; Earth has always alternately warmed and cooled, as any geologist knows. On the other hand, IPCC’s belief in man’s culpability by emission of GHG’s (essentially meaning CO2) is mere guesswork, largely based on the observed simultaneous increase, since the 1800s, in atmospheric CO2 and in global average surface temperature. However, this warming was inconstant, i.e. the post-1850 temperature graph shows decades-long up-down ‘saw-teeth’, as shown by the previous two links (Met Office and Berkeley).
In contrast, CO2’s rise lacks saw-teeth:
https://sealevel.info/co2.html
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To see precise values, hover your mouse cursor over the red graph trace. (However, all values are shown with one more significant digit than is warranted by the precision of the measurements, and the ice core values are less accurate than the Mauna Loa measurements.)
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What else shows an overall rise with superimposed decades-long saw-teeth? The Sun:
By cross-matching the decades-long saw-teeth on this solar activity graph (ignoring the pervasive 11-year sunspot cycle) versus the post-1750 temperature graph (Berkeley), a good visual correlation is seen:
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PDF | GEOCLASTICA LTD TECHNICAL NOTE 2020-1, based on 500-WORD ABSTRACT, SUBMITTED JANUARY 2020, FOR EUROPEAN GEOSCIENCES UNION GENERAL ASSEMBLY,… | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate
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This ResearchGate contribution is based on an abstract I submitted this month for the May 2020 European Geoscience Union general assembly in Vienna (click ‘Linked data’). I await acceptance or, more likely, rejection.
Temperature peaks (and troughs) clearly lag about 100 years behind solar peaks (or troughs), a delay attributable to the ocean’s thermal inertia (vast volume; high thermal capacity; slow reaction time; e.g. Abdussamatov et al. 2012):
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.
Further confirming that the Sun, not CO2, governs global temperature, a rare solar ‘Grand Maximum’ (GM) has recently ended, spanning approximately 1937-2004 (Chatzistergos et al. 2017 fig. 5):
https://www.aanda.org/
The next-strongest GM occurred 1,700 years ago, about 300AD (Vieira et al. 2011 fig. 5a):
https://www.aanda.org/
Surely not by pure coincidence, roughly 100 years (ocean lag time) later, spanning about 400-450AD, humanity enjoyed Earth’s warmest temperatures of the first millennium AD, and arguably of the second millennium as well (PAGES2k 2017 fig. 7):
https://www.nature.com/
and probably the highest sea level as well (Fairbridge 1976 fig. 3 sea-level curve; NB radiocarbon-dating uncertainty typically +/-200 years):
https://science.sciencemag.
(paid access).
Remarkably, the IPCC dismisses solar fluctuations as unimportant in climate change and ignores the possibility that ocean thermal inertia might delay, by decades, the effect of solar up- or downswings on global average surface temperature (cf. Abdussamatov et al. 2012; see above).
Returning to the Cheng et al. assertion that “There are no reasonable alternatives aside from anthropogenic emissions of heat-trapping gases” to explain modern global warming, they are wrong. A viable alternative rapidly gaining acceptance is that modern global warming is solar-driven, via Svensmark’s breathtakingly simple and elegant solar/cosmic rays/clouds/climate mechanism:
https://www.thegwpf.org/
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Executivesummary Over the last twenty years there has been good progress in understanding the solar influ-enceonclimate. Inparticular …
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3. Failure to mention geological-time context
In common with IPCC publications, Cheng et al. neglected to place their results into a geological (time) perspective. The data in Cheng et al. cover just 64 years, 1955 to 2019. Earth is 70 million (sic) times older (4.5 billion years old), so the probability that the ocean has in the past been warmer than today is very large indeed. How would we even know if the ocean warmth documented by Cheng et al., and the rate of recent warming over the 64 years, are unusual?
Scientists reading Cheng et al. will be aware that the time frame is extremely short, but media organisations ‘recycling’ the findings of Cheng et al. will not, so their listeners and readers will not understand how very misleading it is to say “the warmest in recorded human history”. Media companies well known for bias and exaggeration, like the BBC and the Guardian, may even exacerbate this problem. For example, the CBBC (children‘s BBC), in a 14th January online article summarising the Cheng et al. results, went so far as to title it “Why our oceans are hotter than they’ve ever been before” (my emphasis):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/
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Oceans reached record temperatures last year, according to new analysis. A team of climate experts and scientists carried out research which revealed that the temperature in 2019 was around 0.075 …
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Here the BBC says it again …
https://www.sciencefocus.com/
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Our oceans were warmer in 2019 than they’ve been at any other time in recorded human history, according to a new analysis. The team of scientists, based at 11 institutes in China and the US, found that the past five years have collectively been the warmest on record for global ocean temperatures …
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Be appalled at such ignorance and journalistic irresponsibility. The BBC will possibly (hopefully) rectify this shocking error soon, but I have saved a pdf of both items (email me for copies).
Concluding remark
I find the Cheng et al. article extraordinarily poor, especially given the extremely high stakes, i.e. the spending of trillions of dollars, leading to crippled economies and countless people remaining in energy poverty, in order to ‘tackle’ what tens of thousands of scientists, myself included, view as a non-problem (temporary, beneficial, slight global warming) and an imaginary enemy (CO2, essential for plant growth, greening our planet before our very eyes).
Cheng et al. should have simply reported the (temperature) data, and clearly explained its geological-time context, without launching into an unbalanced approval of the IPCC’s belief (sic), increasingly shaky, that warming is due to mankind rather than the Sun.
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Richard Wakefield
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Cold CO2 in the air cannot increase the temperature of the warmer oceans. Violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Only a heat source can increase temperature, and that heat source is the sun. This is basic high school physics, people.
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Alan
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True, what has happened to education and the ability for rational analysis? The masses do not even want to listen to scientists. They prefer Greta telling them to look at the science and seem to trust a school girl who gave up education to enjoy the high life parading around the world putting on an act for the equally incapable politicians.
But also, even if the atmosphere was warmer than the land masses and oceans, one look at the difference in thermal properties of air and water tells us that the atmosphere is not going to have much effect on the temperature of the oceans. The mass and specific heat tell us that the atmosphere would have to reach hundreds of degrees to even cause a small increase in temperature of the earth.
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Pete Sudbury
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“Another Scientist Writes Something Intelligent” should be the title.
You don’t need any more than common sense to work out this paper is a smorgasbord of nonsense. I’m not wasting my time debunking a paper the author must know is incoherent and deliberately misleading.
for a reality check, try https://open.oregonstate.education/climatechange/#navigation
Have a wonderful day!
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James Edward Gobbett
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They’re convinced of a scientific fact: debunking IPCC theses leads to jobloss.
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DebraL
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Great article!!! Where is all the information about all the active volcanoes in the ocean, how come they are omitting that information….is it because it doesn’t fit their narrative….especially all the volcanoes in the antarctic and artic…I would like to see them include the effect the sun has on the temps…. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions have been increasing….they affect the temperature more than Co2.
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T. C. Clark
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I am alarmed by the no. of big corporations that are joining in the “planet in peril from evil carbon” narrative. The CEO of Microsoft has recently bragged that he asked the shareholders if Microsoft should become involved. I mean, they are going to save the planet….you cannot get more virtuous than that. Even Big Oil tries to join in….look at natural gas….it’s cleaner….and natural.
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Alan
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All businesses are taking advantage of the tax money that flows without end. Owners of wind turbines are being paid more when the grid cannot accept the energy than they are paid when they generate electricity. Who wouldn’t want to invest in renewable energy. There is no point in trying to explain this the Extinction Rebellion and the Green Parties.
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John Doran
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Great article, thank you.
The clear logical presentation reminds me of Alex Epstein’s The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels.
JD.
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Alan
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The most important point about this paper is that the warming is expressed as a change of energy in zetajoules but it does not tell us what the total energy content is. Willis Eschenbach converted this to a change in temperature and it is insignificant. See https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/14/the-ocean-warms-by-a-whole-little/?unapproved=2896434&moderation-hash=9833353f2fe4ba9dcfe21fe682339e20#comment-2896434
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