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Lesson 1 Graphs |
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For decades this NASA graph
based on the database of Great Britain's Climate Research Unit shows a
dramatic increase in temperature was accepted by scientists as proving that
there was a dramatic increase in earth's temperature starting in the late
1970s. CO2 levels also increased during this period starting in the late
1940s, leading to the conclusion that man was responsible for the
temperature increase. However, this data is corrupted with the
heat island effect. Also, note that the increase in atmospheric CO2
started in the late 1940s, just when earth was going through a cooling
period. The heat island effect is supposed to have been mostly removed from the United
States data set, which accounts for one-fourth of the worlds measuring
stations. However, in the fall of 2009 and into the winter of 2010, it was
revealed that rather than removing the heat island effect, NASA and NOAA may
have actually amplified it. Also, the main temperature data base at the
Climate Research Unit in Great Britain has deliberately corrupted the
database used in producing the graph. |
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A serious error was found in the NASA
temperature data for the United States in 2007. When corrected, it was determined that the warmest
year in the past 100 years was not in 1998 and 2006 as previously believed, but was
1934, followed 1998. 1921 became the third
hottest year, followed by 2006 and 1933. Out of the five hottest years,
three occurred in the 1920s and 30s and only two were in the past 10 years.
Notice that the US data do not have the same steep increase in temperature
shown in the corrupted data of Britain's Climate Research Unit's data in the
graph above. This dramatically changes scientists understanding of the importance of the
warming that has occurred since 1975. The period between 1995 and 2009 is no
warmer than the period between 1920 and 1935.
This error in the NASA data has lead to discoveries of other errors in the
data which are raising concern
about data integrity of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies. |
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When global ground measured temperatures
are compared to satellite measured temperatures, the satellite measured
temperatures show far less warming. Satellite measurements can measure
temperature to 0.07oC. Numerous research studies have also shown
that these satellite temperatures agree well with real-time
radiosonde
balloon measurements of the earth's atmosphere. (Radiosonde balloons are
released several times a day at various places around the earth, which
report back the temperature and other data as they rise through the
atmosphere. Since most of the ground measured temperatures are contaminated
with heat island error, a growing number of
scientists are concerned the global ground temperatures are hopelessly
corrupted. |
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The heat island effect is a term
describing how the growth of cities around historic temperature measuring
stations can artificially raise the temperature for the city by 12oF.
This happens because what used to be open fields and forests many decades
ago around the measuring station are now buildings with asphalt roofs and
parking lots which absorb the sun's energy and heating up the surrounding
area. This has nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with
land use changes. The heat island effect introduces a tremendous artificial warming error if
this corrupted data is used without making a correction to determine the change in global temperatures
around the world. The correction is very hard to do. Most
of the global temperature data still has this error. The only set of data in which
an attempt has been made to remove this source of error is the
United
States. Even though recent research shows this data still has some of the
heat island effect error in it, most of it is removed and when plotted shows
that the warmest period in the past 100 years occurred between 1925 and
1945, not the 1990s and 2000s.
The graphic to the left shows infrared photography of
Atlanta, Georgia during the day (above) and night (below). The more red
there is, the warmer the temperature. The greener it is, the cooler the
temperature. Normal forests and fields in Georgia during the day would be a
mustard green, not the hot red that is seen in the upper photo. At night it
would be a cool green, not the mustard green/orange seen in the bottom
photo, indicating the city still is much warmer than it would otherwise be.
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Earth's temperature has not risen
significantly since 1998 and has
cooled by 0.5oC since early
2007. Even the
United Nations has quietly admitted this. This is completely contrary to the CO2 caused global warming theory,
which states that the earth's temperature should be quickly rising because
atmospheric CO2 is rising quickly. The UN and those who support the CO2
warming theory claim
that the cooling is just a temporary glitch and earth's temperature will
began to rise again in a year or two. However, as explained in Lesson 3, a
majority of scientists now believe that we are in for a
15 to 35 year
cooling cycle that has nothing to do with CO2 and everything to do with
solar activity and temperature
oscillations of the oceans. Also see
here. |
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) and Al Gore's video Inconvenient Truth both separate
earth's long term global CO2 and temperature to give the appearance that
there is a high correlation between CO2 and Temperature over the past
450,000 to 650,000 years. By doing so, it leads to the conclusion that CO2
changes have historically caused temperature changes. What is not obvious,
however, until the graphs are superimposed is that temperature changes
always precedes CO2 changes, indicating that temperature causes CO2 to
change. As the earth warms, the oceans gradually warm. Warm water holds less
carbon dioxide, so the carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean diffuses into
the atmosphere. It takes hundreds of years for this to happen. That is why
there is a lag of 600 to 1200 years before atmospheric carbon dioxide
responds to earth's warming. The reverse is true when earth cools.
Gradually the oceans cool, and the atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves back
into the ocean. |
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Rather than changes in earth's CO2
causing temperature to change, scientists have actually found that changes
in earth's temperatures always precedes changes in CO2 by 400 to a 1000
years -- just the opposite of what global warming proponents would have us
believe. |
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It is often reported that the temperature
of the earth is higher the past 20 years than it has ever been in history.
This is simply not true, nor has it ever been. Hundreds of research studies
using ice cores, pollen sedimentation, tree rings, etc. have shown that
there were dozens of periods in the past 11,000 years (the Holocene period)
that earth's temperature was warmer than it is today. Earth's temperature
was very much warmer at least four times during the current interglacial
period. |
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The earth's temperature spiked in 1998,
leading many scientists to believe it was caused by global warming. It was
soon determined, however, that the spike was caused by a major El Niņo
event. The sun was also undergoing major activity with several major solar
flares and coronal mass ejections aimed directly at earth. Since then, there
is a growing consensus in the scientific community that the
sun's activity is the biggest controlling factor of earth's climate as it affects cloud
formation, El Niņo/La Niņa relationships. More on this in Lesson 3. |
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Hundreds of research studies using ice
cores, pollen sedimentation, tree rings, etc. from all over the earth have
shown that there was a major cooling of the earth in the 1700s and 1800s
when it was well over 1oC cooler than it is today. The theory is
so well established that it is called the Little Ice Age. It was accompanied
by major storms, very cold winters (the Thames River in London and the
canals of Holland froze over every year), famine, and outbreaks of plagues.
Scientists have discovered that during that period of time the sun was very
inactive, which seems to be the driving
force for climate change on the earth. The warming we see today is
probably nothing more than the recovery from this Little Ice Age.
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Before the Little Ice Age, research
studies have shown that there were two major warming periods; the Medieval
Climate Optimum and the Holocene Optimum when it was 1.5 to nearly 3
degrees C warmer than it is today. The Vikings colonized Greenland during
the Medieval Climate Optimum when they could actually grow crops on
Greenland. By the 1400s Greenland had become so cold that these colonies had
to be abandoned. More on this in Lesson 3. |
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Of all the carbon emitted into the atmosphere each year, 210
billion tons are from natural sources, and only 6.3 billion tons are from
man's activity. Man's burning of fossil fuel, therefore only accounts for 3
percent of total emissions of CO2. |
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People are never told that the most
powerful greenhouse gases by orders of magnitude is water vapor and clouds.
When only human emitted CO2 is considered, less than one percent of the
greenhouse gas potential comes from human activity. Yet, all the global
warming is supposed to be attributed to it. Water vapor plays a huge role in
keeping the earth warm; 70 times more powerful than the CO2 emitted by human
activity. When clouds are added, CO2 becomes even less important. However,
clouds not only trap heat, low elevation clouds also reflect much of the
incoming solar radiation, so the sun's heat never reaches the earth's
surface which cools the earth. It is this mechanism that a growing number of
scientists believe is one of the primary
mechanisms warming and cooling the earth. More on this in Lesson 3.
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The importance of water vapor and clouds
can be seen in the day/night temperatures between desert cities and deep
south humid cities. In this example the desert gets much hotter because
their is less water vapor in the atmosphere. For the same reason, the
temperature can drop as much as 45oF during the night during the
summer. On the other hand, the humid city does not get as hot, but the
temperature does not drop as much at night because the water vapor holds the
heat. Clouds can not only hold the heat close to the earth, but during the
day, much of the solar radiation reflects off of the clouds, preventing the
solar energy from reaching the earth's surface to heat it. Otherwise it
would become unbearably hot. |
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In 1998 a team of scientists applied a
statistical analysis to a selected data set of earth's past temperatures and
reported that instead of having a Little Ice Age
and Medieval Climate Optimum over the past 1000 years, the earth's
temperature was relatively flat, until the latter half of the twentieth
century when it skyrocketed, allegedly providing proof positive that mankind
was causing the warming due to CO2 emissions. The curve was called the
Hockey Stick Curve because of the similarity of the graph to a hockey stick.
Without verifying these results, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) made this graph the centerpiece of its 2001 Summary
for Policy Makers. When other scientists tried to verify the results, Dr.
Michael Mann (the lead author of the study) refused to provide the data set
to the scientists wanting to verify his results. |
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Finally, two Canadian scientists found
out the data set used by Mann, and analyzed Mann's statistical approach.
They determined that Mann and his team used incorrect statistics to come up
with the curve. In fact, it was so bad that the same curve was created even
if they inputted a completely random data set. The curve was a function of
the statistics used, and had nothing to do with reality. When the Canadian
scientists applied the correct statistics, out popped the Little Ice Age and
Medieval Climate Optimum (see above). Worse, a scandal at Great Britain's
Climate Research Unit in the late fall of 2009 revealed that the data used
in the graph after 1960 was from a totally different and completely
corrupted data set. Even if the second data set was not corrupted, combining
two radically different data sets (apples and oranges) into one graph
negates its scientific validity. Although the Hockey Stick Curve was thoroughly
discredited, it continued to be used in publications and media reports for
years, and was a main component of Al Gore's video The Inconvenient
Truth. Perhaps the most alarming aspect of this episode is that even
after having his error exposed, Dr. Michael Mann is still a principal
scientist in the IPCC and receives millions of dollars from the US
government. Tragically, this kind of slipshod research has also
been discovered coming out of
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Since the finding that
NASA's temperature data was in error in 2007,
other errors are being reported. |
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