1/8》
The temperature indexes are inconsistent, but you can't tell that from Priscian's misleading graph.
An honest graph would offset the traces so you can tell them apart, or else start them at the same temp. Instead he aligned the full-period averages, to hide the spread.
Here's what he's hiding:
What Jim Java / Priscian doesn't want you to notice is that the GISS (and Berkeley Earth, etc.) surface temperature indexes show much more warming than the UAH and NOAA STAR satellite-based lower troposphere measurements.
Land "surface" measurements are air temperatures measured with thermometers in Stevenson screens, usually 1.25 to 2 meters above ground. Satellite "lower troposphere" indexes (UAH, NOAA STAR, RSS) are from higher altitudes. Due to "lapse rate feedback," the (higher) altitudes where satellites measure temperatures should see a slightly greater warming trend than is seen 1.25 to 2 meters above the surface. Instead, they see less.
So, UAH6 & NOAA STAR satellite-based measurements suggest that those high-end surface temperature indexes are reporting at least 56% too much warming.
But even if it is exaggerated, the warming isn't worrisome. After all, humans are a tropical species, and most of the Earth is much too cold.
Warming saves lives, and excess cold causes many times more human deaths than excess heat — even in tropical counties, believe it or not! Here are some recent papers about it:
1. Masselot et al (2023).
2. Gasparrini et al (2022).
Composite of two figures from the paper:
3. Zhao et al (2021).
Discussion:
Summary:
4. Gasparrini et al (2015).
Fig. 2:
Are you familiar with the term "climate optimum?" If you go to ResearchGate or Google Scholar, and search for "Climate Optimum" (or Eemian Optimum, Mid-Holocene Optimum, Roman Optimum, or Medieval Optimum), you'll find thousands of papers using that terminology. Those "optimums" were warm periods.
The reason so many academic papers call the warmest periods in history "climate optimums" is that there is a consensus among historians and scientists that those warm "climate optimums" — including periods warmer than now — were, by all objective measures, better than colder periods.
Or, look at the flip side: cold periods, like the Dark Ages Cold Period (DACP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). There's a broad consensus that those cold periods were, by all objective measures, worse for humanity than the warm "optimums."
Here's a 1974 CIA study about the threat of global cooling:
This graph from that study shows how cooling temperatures threaten food supplies:
3/8》
Depending on whose temperature index you use, we’ve seen an average of between 0.59 and 0.92 °C of warming since 1958 (when Mauna Loa CO2 measurements began).
That warming has shifted growing zones and “temperature isotherms” slightly toward the poles (northward, in the NH). So, the obvious question is, how far?
That’s easy to answer, by looking at an agricultural growing zone map. Here's one, shared by permission from the Arbor Day Foundation:
From eyeballing the map, you can see that 1°C (1.8°F) = about 50-70 miles latitude change.
Here's James Hansen and his GISS colleagues reporting a similar figure:
Excerpt: "A warming of 0.5°C... implies typically a poleward shift of isotherms by 50 to 75 km..."
4/8》
In most places that much warming can be compensated for by farmers, simply by adjusting planting dates. For example, in Kansas, 1°C of warming can be compensated for by planting about 6 days earlier in springtime:
Obviously, the slight measured warming trend does not support the "climate emergency" narrative.sealevel.info/wichita_spring…
5/8》
Worse than the disagreement between different temperature indexes is the disagreement between different versions of the SAME temperature index, due to revisions made to the "measured" data.
That's one of the main reasons Tony Heller @TonyClimate (and others) think there's a thumb on the scale.
Do you remember this?
"...it is clear that 1998 did not match the record warmth of 1934..." [in the USA]
– James Hansen et al (circa 1999)
1/3. MunichRe is not just an insurance company. It's the giant German reinsurance company which bankrolls Rahmstorf and Potsdam Institute (PIK). They're among the worst and most extreme promoters of crackpot climate alarmism, just short of XR.
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● investors.com/politics/edito… rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/2023-update-…
2/3. Hyping climate alarmism is a business strategy for MunichRe, because they realized climate alarmism is good for their business. When people expect worsening disasters, they're willing to pay more for reinsurance.
3/3. Do you know where the "extreme weather" nonsense came from? Not from evidence, but from James Hansen's epic confusion.
Somehow he avoided learning about Arctic Amplification. He thought AGW would warm the tropics MORE than high latitudes.
That's a clip of Hansen on Letterman, explaining it. Hansen claimed that the “increasing temperature gradient” [between high & low latitudes] would "drive stronger storms.”
That's just plain wrong. The temperature gradient is DECREASING, not increasing.
You see, "global warming" isn't really very global. Thanks to stronger-than-linear negative feedbacks, such as Planck cooling, warm climates are more stable than cold climates. So AGW disproportionately warms chilly high latitudes. The tropics are affected much less (which is nice, because the tropics are warm enough already).
Hansen wrote a ridiculous book based on his confusion, and did a whirlwind publicity tour, pitching the book & spreading the claim that AGW will cause worsening storms / weather. (That's why he was on Letterman.)
Nearly all climate scientists know that's wrong, but none of them challenged him. Nearly everyone in the climate biz (maybe even Hansen, by now), has heard of Arctic Amplification, but the climate industry is so corrupt that neither Hansen's colleagues nor anyone else in the industry corrected his error. sealevel.info/feedbacks.html… amazon.com/Storms-My-Gran…
2/18.
Lyme disease was first identified in chilly Lyme, CT. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever was first found in frigid Idaho & Montana. Both spread SOUTH — obviously NOT due to global WARMING.
Like every other climate scare, this one is a lie.
There's no evidence at all that climate change is spreading ticks and the diseases they carry, or any other disease. One degree of warming is equivalent to just 50-70 miles latitude change — completely trivial compared to tick ranges.
@zteirstein 3/18.
Here's a tweetstorm where you can learn many things about CO2 and climate that Grist and the rest of the Climate Industry will never tell you.
2/5》 If we got at most 0.92°C of warming from 58% of the forcing of a full doubling of CO2, then (at most) how much warming we could get from a full doubling of CO2?
3/5》 Those figures are very conventional estimates, widely accepted by climate alarmists. Yet those same climate alarmists believe that TCR climate sensitivity is 1.5 to 2.0°C/doubling of CO2, and ECS is about 3.0°C/doubling of CO2.
1/10. Where on earth do you "learn" such nonsense, Willard?
Growing ranges for most major crops cover climate zones with average temperatures that vary by tens of °C. Major crops like corn, wheat, potatoes & soybeans are produced from Mexico to Canada.
Compared to that, a degree or two of warming (disproportionately at night, in winter, at chilly high latitudes) is de minimis -- as is the 0.35±0.13°C between now and what the IPCC calls "1.5°C of warming").
2/10. Willard wrote, "fertilization is the male gamete to female gamete to produce seed/fruit... not the N-P-K addition"
Wrong. In agriculture, that's called pollination.
3/10. Willard wrote, "(yes, it is often temperature sensitive)"
Wrong. Farmers choose planting dates to optimize growing conditions, including temperatures, for their crops.
1/7. The only trace on that graph which does not show large improvement in cereal yield per hectare is the trace for Niger.
The graph ended with an anomalously bad crop year for cereals in Niger (2021). Fortunately, 2022 was much better; here's an article worldbank.org/en/news/press-…
2/7. By displaying high productivity countries like the USA along with Niger, you forced OurWorldInData to scale the graphs so that it's hard to see the trend in Niger.
But if you display Niger alone, as I've done here, you'll see that cereal yields declined there until about thirty years ago, but they've improved since then (except for 2021).
As you can see, as atmospheric CO2 levels have risen, the natural CO2 removal rate has sharply accelerated. (That's a strong negative/stabilizing climate feedback.) sealevel.info/AR6_WG1_Table_…