Carbonomics no.4: The Evidence of Anthropogenic Global Burning

The previous issue of ‘Carbonomics’ explored the multitude of impacts humans were having on the climate. This work presents the evidence that humans are responsible for triggering global burning. Part one looks at the geophysiological evidence i.e. rising temperatures, the warming of the oceans, melting ice, rising ocean levels, storms, flooding, heat stress/droughts, Phytomass fires, etc. Part Two looks at the economic and insurance evidence which, although far less reliable than geophysiological phenomena, provides some clues as to the plausibility of rising temperatures. Part three attempts to draw some conclusions from these facts.

The superficial view of climate change is that the increasing use of fossil fuels is boosting the release of greenhouse gases which will, over the next century or so, destabilize the climate. The assumptions here are firstly, that up till now humans’ presence on Earth has done little to upset the climate. Secondly, that the current climate is stable and that to preserve this blessed stability humans only need to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.

James lovelock has a more scientific perspective. He argues that over the last 4 aeons there has been an increase in solar radiation. He also argues that over the last couple of aeons the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity has been extracting Carbon from the atmosphere thereby preventing a dramatic rise in global temperatures. In effect, the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity has been stabilizing the climate. A few million years ago this trend reached the point where so much Carbon had been extracted from the atmosphere that the Photosynthetic stabilization of the climate was becoming ineffective. The climate then relapsed into a period succession of ice ages and interglacials because, under the unrelenting increase in solar radiation and the decline in atmospheric Carbon, it had become unstable. Lovelock believes that if the Earth is to counterract increasing long term solar radiation (that is changes which take place over millions of years) it must remain in an ice age state in which global temperatures would be, on average, 10C. In other words, given that global average temperatures are currently 15C, the climate is already 5C warmer than it should be. This means that humans’ impact on the climate is far more serious than is suggested by the fact that global temperatures have risen by only half a degree over the last century. Indeed, according to lovelock, the situation is even more precarious given that the capability of the Earth’s Photosynthesizers to stabilize the climate begins to diminish when global temperatures rise to 18C.

PART ONE: THE GEOPHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE.

Some climatologists depict the current period in the Earth’s history as ‘the holocene’. They believe the Earth has entered a warmer period which has superceded the ice ages of the pleistocene period. However, there are other climatologists who regard the current warm period as just another inter-glacial within the pleistocene period, "The dating of this retreat and the concept of the ‘Great Ice age’ led to the idea that the ice age had ended. The pleistocene epoch, the ice age epoch, had come to an end and a new epoch had begun - called the Holocene. Most geologists now believe the change of name may have been premature." They classify the last inter-glacial as the eemian and the current inter-glacial as the flandrian .. "it may be that our use of the word ‘holocene’ (or ‘recent’) is premature. Most palaeoclimatologists agree that we are presently living in an interglacial, called the flandrian, and that one day (no one can say when) this will end and there will be another ice age." The eemian existed between 131,000-114,500 bp and was followed by an ice age which lasted for 100,000 years, "Between about 131,000 and 114,000 years ago there was a warm period like today’s climate, referred to in europe as the eemian. This was followed by the wisconsin ice age, which ended about 12,000 years ago when the current relatively warm holocene period began."

"About 12,000 ago, after warm weather fauna had returned to northern europe and the north Atlantic following the long glacial period, there was a dramatic return to ice age-like conditions in less than a hundred years. This miniglacial is known as the Younger Dryas, after the widespread reappearance of the Dryas, a tundra flower. It lasted for some 500 years before the warm, stable Holocene finally set in."; "What triggered the yonger dryas? Cyclical variations in the Earth’s axis and orbit around the sun .. could not have been the explanation, since at the time these variations were tending to warm the northern hemisphere."

"The ice sheets and glaciers began to retreat about 10,000 years ago."; .. "the wisconsin ice age, which ended about 12,000 years ago when the current relatively warm holocene period began."; "The climate grew very warm after the last ice age. In fact, it was a degree or two warmer than today, heralding the warmest climate of the past 80,000 years. The ice caps melting at the pole spilled vast pools of fresh water into the oceans, and world sea levels rose rapidly up to 51 feet higher."

"This period (the Holocene) reached its warmest phase about 6,000ybp when the earth was about 1.5C warmer than today." The holocene ".. reaching its hottest perhaps 6,000 years ago."; "Temperatures were a little warmer than today during the ‘altithermal’ or ‘climatic optimum’ between 9000 and 6000 years ago."; "Many arctic ice cores tell us that 8,200 years ago the climate approached ice age conditions for a 400 year period before returning to conditions similar to today"

.. "from around 1150-1300 a much warmer climate was experienced throughout the temperate latitudes."; "1100-1300AD medieval warm period."; "This warmer epoch (1150-1300) is now usually referred to as the Little optimum."; "Between 900-1300ad the world basked in temperatures about a degree warmer than today’s."; "By 1200 Europeans has cut and ploughed their way across the continent with such thoroughness that they threatened to create a treeless desert. With a few great exceptions, Europe's great forests date from the late Middle Ages."; "Around 1,000 years ago came several centuries during which northern latitudes were perhaps a few degrees warmer than today."

"By 1320 all northwest europe was in the grip of the little ice age. .. but the little ice age did not finally end until the middle of the 19thc."; "1520-1850 ad little ice age." "There is widespread evidence for cooling during what is generally recognized as the ‘Little Ice Age’ of the fourteenth to the early 19C."; "The period 1550-1750 was the coldest this millennium .."

"Following the medieval cold of the 1400s the weather seemed to oscillate wildly. There were some very warm summers and some appallingly wet ones producing floods and failed harvests. The early 1500s were generally warm, but around the middle of the century the so-called little ice age set in - another bitterly cold epoch."; "The period 1550-1750 was the coldest this millennium, although the climate wildly fluctuated and the mid-1660s were so warm drought struck in the summer."

Temperature records were started in 1860, "Measurement records indicate a warming of 0.3o-0.6oC in global average temperature since 1860. This is in line with model projections of the size of warming to date, particularly when the cooling effect of sulphur emissions is included. But observations are sparse before 1900 and much of the warming occurred between 1910 and 1940, before the largest rise in greenhouse gases. There is clearly more going on than a simple, direct response to emissions. This is to be expected as the climate is a complicated and chaotic system."

The scientific working party of the inter-governmental panel on climate change (ipcc) was set up in 1988 to assess the threat posed by what was called the greenhouse effect. In 1990 it published a report stating there had been an increase in global temperatures over the past century of roughly 0.5C .. "global mean surface temperature has increased by 0.3 to 0.6C over the last 100 years." However, this is an average figure. The Planet has both warmed and cooled during this period, "Over the last century the average world wide temperature has risen by about 0.5C. That such a small average rise took a century is a little misleading because during the 30 year cooling (1940-1970) the temperature fell back a long way."; "Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers from the University of Massachusetts and the University of Arizona report on the use of tree-ring and other indirect indicators to construct a climate record for the past 1000 years. The new record shows slow cooling over the first 900 years then rapid warming over the most recent century. According to author Michael Mann "the abruptness of the recent warming is key, and it is a potential cause for concern.""

The Planet warmed up until 1940; "Global mean temperature increased by about 0.5C between 1880 and 1940." Gregg easterbrook is a global burning sceptic. He wrote a book in the early 1990s when it was still easy to dismiss the idea of global burning because the hot years from the 1980s to the 1990s could not be seen as a trend. He quoted figures from the goddard institute for space studies which .. "show that global temperatures have increased by about one degree F through the past century. The same studies how that most of that one-degree increase came before 1940 - before artificial greenhouse gas emissions were substantial."; "But (temperature) observations are sparse before 1900 and much of the warming occurred between 1910 and 1940, before the largest rise in greenhouse gases."

The following quote is anomalous, "In particular the new model successfully predicts the previously mysterious warming that took place in the 1940s. "The warm temperatures in that decade seem to have been due to high solar activity and low volcanic activity," says jenkins."

There has been a dramatic increase in global average temperatures from 1980 to the present time. Unfortunately, as far as is known, there is no graph of the rises in global temperatures, or a table giving global average temperatures for each year over the last couple of decades. Scientists haven’t bothered to try to put their message over in an easily digestible fashion. What has happened is that commentators have been left having to say that ‘this year was the third warmest on record’ only to find that a few years later it became the fourth or fifth warmest - which of course just confuses the public who think that scientists are yet again arguing amongst themselves. The following sections provide a list of these announcements in the order in which they were made.

"1994 proved to be the fourth warmest year in the record of global surface air temperature." In 1994 it was stated, "The eight hottest years on record have all occurred since 1980. 1990 was the hottest year since records began. 1991 was the third hottest year, despite the cooling effects of the Mount Pinatubo eruption. 1993 was the sixth hottest this century. The 1980s were the hottest decade since records began."

"1995 .. was the hottest ever year in 136 years of records for land and sea, fully 0.4C above the 1961-1990 baseline. The hottest eight years on record had now all been in the last ten."; "1995 was the hottest year in history."; "Last year (1995) was the world’s warmest since global average temperatures were first collected in 1860. 1995 was 0.4C warmer than the 1961-1990 average. The previous warmest year, 1990, was 0.36C warmer than the average."

1997 was another year of record breaking global temperatures, "1997 saw the record for the highest annual global temperature value since 1856 broken once again. 1997 marks the third time the record has been broken during the 1990s. Nine of the ten warmest years since the mid-19th century have occurred since 1980. According to the World Meteorological Organization’s annual statement on global climate, temperatures in the tropics were the second highest on record during 1997. The warming trend that has characterized recent decades has also been marked over lower latitudes. Superimposed on the longer-term trend, the El Nino Southern Oscillation event which began during 1997 was a major factor in pushing the annual temperature above the previous record set in 1995."; "Global average temperatures for 1997 are likely to be higher than 1995, the hottest previous year on record. Experts say the record-breaking temperatures are due to a combination of the el nino effect, which is developing at an unprecedented speed. "The hadley centre for climate change in berkshire confirmed in kyoto yesterday that 1997 was the hottest year recorded."

There was a marked increase in global temperatures in 1998, "1998 broke all records for global average annual surface temperature by a depressingly wide margin."; Vice president al gore claims that july 1998 was the hottest month in recorded history.; "The 1998 global surface air temperature value was the highest since at least 1856. Analysis of longer-term climate records suggests this year may have been the warmest of the millennium. Data compiled by scientists at the University of East Anglia and the UK Met Office show that the global temperature during 1998 was a striking 0.57 degrees C above the 1961-90 mean. The record-breaking temperature was partially the result of the marked El Nino of that year but also reflects the overall warmth of the decade. The record for the warmest year has now been broken four times during the 1990s."; .. "in terms of the mean global temperature, 1998 was by far the warmest year since measurements were first taken worldwide around 150 years ago."; "Potentially most serious in the long term, global temperatures jumped dramatically last year to a new record of 14.57C."

In 1998 it was stated, "The nine hottest years on record have all occurred since 1980, despite the 2-3 year cooling effect of the Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption in 1991. 1994 was the third or fourth hottest year on record."; "1997 and 1995 were the two warmest years in a global record that goes back to 1860. Ten of the eleven warmest years in that record occurred after 1980."; "Three of the past eight years have been the hottest since at least the Middle Ages with the rising temperatures firmly linked with global warming, scientists say. But the rising temperatures of the late 20th century are firmly linked to man-made causes. Whereas natural phenomena, such as volcanic eruptions, changes in solar irradiation and El Nino, shaped the weather for much of the past 500 years, recent climate changes have been caused by rising concentrations of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, research published in Nature says. Three of the past eight years - 1990, 1995 and 1997 - have been the hottest on Earth for at least 600 years."; "Eight of the past 10 years have been the warmest on global record and the Hadley scientists reported last week that the first six months of 1998 was easily the warmest first half of a year since records began in 1860. Each individual month of 1998 has been the hottest recorded, and we can expect more records to tumble."

.. "last night researchers at u.s. universities, who studied tree rings and ice cores from 1000 year intervals to record climate variations, repeated fears that further change could bring worldwide droughts, hurricanes and blizzards. Scientist michael mann said, "It’s worrying. Recent temperatures have been unprecedented, reversing a cooling trend of 900 years."; "Nine of the hottest years on record have occurred since 1988."; "Every year since the late 1970s has been warmer than average." "1998 was by far the warmest year since measurements were first taken worldwide around 150 years ago." the statement said."

Two of the quotes given above are stark. In late 1998 it was stated that, "Eight of the past 10 years have been the warmest on global record" and 1998 itself was set to become the warmest year on record. The second quote worth repeating is that, "The record for the warmest year has now been broken four times during the 1990s." Nobody has a good explanation for the sudden rises in annual global temperatures over the last couple of decades. A number of factors are likely to be involved: the release of greenhouse gases; the release of cfcs; and, the vast increase in the rate of global deforestation but none of these has increased in such a dramatic fashion as the rise in global temperatures. This suggests either that other factors are involved or that there has been some sort of build up of pressure on global temperatures as a result of changes that have taken place in the past.

"Global warming is accelerating faster than climate modellers predicted. Thomas karl, a director of the national climate data center at the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration in the u.s., calculates that the rate of warming is already equivalent to a 3C increase this century. "This means that over the past two and a half decades we have already experienced the rate of warming projected to continue throughout the next century."" This could be taken as being alarming in the sense that many climatologists have estimated an average rise in global temperatures over the next century on the assumption that most of the rise would take place during the second half of the century. If this average is already happening now then this suggests there could be even more substantial rises later on in the century.

In 1997 it was argued, .. "ten of the eleven warmest (years) will have been since 1980." In early 1999, it was argued .. "the 12 hottest years in recorded history occurring since 1980." In late 1999 bunyard argued, "13 of the warmest years have all occurred during the past 20 years." According to james baker, of the national oceanic and atmospheric administration (noaa), "You see a temperature change of about 1 degree Fahrenheit in 100 years. This is not a big change. But over the past 20 years, the change has been four times that." The national academy of sciences reported that, "While still uncertain about the long-term trend, a panel of scientists says there's no question the warming of the Earth - under way for a century - has accelerated during the past 20 years. The warming trend in global-mean surface temperatures over the past two decades "is undoubtedly real and is substantially greater than the average rate of warming during the 20th century," said the 11-member panel of the National Academy of Sciences in a 71 page report published January 12th 2000." But the panel of the Academy's National Research Council said the warming over the past two decades has accelerated when compared with the entire 100 year span during which surface temperatures have been kept. "The panel said global temperatures increased 0.45 to 0.72 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years. By comparison, temperatures increased 0.72 to 1.44 degrees Fahrenheit over the entire 100-year period."

"The nineties were the warmest decade of the millennium, with 1998 the hottest year."; "Seven of the 10 warmest years have occurred in the 1990s. The other three were all in the later 1980s. Last year, (1998) the warmest on record, was the worst year for climate related disasters."; "The five hottest years have all occurred in the 1990s. The world is experiencing the biggest thaw since the last ice age."

There are a few scientists who compare current global temperatures with earlier periods, "Three of the last eight years have been the hottest in the northern hemisphere for six centuries - and greenhouse gases have emerged as the ‘dominant’ culprit. The research (by michael mann at massachusetts university) finds that in 1990, 1995 and 1997 average northern temperatures were the highest since at least 1400."

"The clearest evidence yet of global warming has come from one of the coldest inhabited regions of the globe - Alaska. Researchers from the University of Illinois have found that the most northerly state of the US, and the nearby region of Canada, has warmed by one degree Celsius per decade for the past 30 years, three times faster than the warming that has been taking place over the Arctic as a whole. The warming has serious implications, because much of the state is (or used to be) permanently frozen. Temperatures have risen by a full degree over the past 10 years even at a depth of a meter below the surface of the ground, and this is beginning to melt the permafrost. When buried islands of ice melt as a result, they make gaps which collapse and form holes, known as thermokarsts - and these holes are now opening up under roads and buildings, as well as causing landslides. By studying the thickness of old tree rings laid down in trees growing in the region, climatologists can reconstruct temperature variations of the past (the trees grow more vigorously when Alaska is warmer). This shows that there has been no warming comparable to what has gone on since the 1960s for at least 400 years (as far back as the tree ring records go). It is hard to escape the conclusion that Alaska is warming because of the build-up of greenhouse gases."

"Much of siberia is 3-5C warmer than it was earlier this century." Bunyard makes a point, , "Siberia .. is warming faster than almost anywhere else on the planet." which, unfortunately, loses its scientific credibility when its succeeded by the following statement, "Antarctica appears to be warming faster than anywhere else on the planet ..

The second peculiarity is that most of the increase in warming has taken place at night, "There has been a widespread reduction in the difference between daytime and night-time temperatures, mostly as a result of greater warming at night."; "Nights are getting warmer 50% faster than days."; .."the observed warming over the past several decades is primarily due to an increase of the daily minimum (night-time) temperatures with little contribution from the daily maximum (daytime) temperatures. The source of the greater warming at night relative to that by day is not clear but could be related to enhanced cloudiness, increasing concentrations of man-made sulphur-based aerosols, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and possible residual urbanization effects in the record." Easterbrook suggests a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, that, "Clouds are an important factor in day-night warming trends. During the day clouds are cooler, blocking the sun; at night they cause warming, holding heat near the ground." Secondly, that .. "during the day, the smog mirror caused by sulphur pollution ‘masks’ the warming by reflecting extra sunlight into space, netting no change. At night the gases continue trapping heat, but now, there being no sunlight to reflect, the masking effect is deactivated."

A second peculiarity is that the rise in global temperatures is taking place mostly during the winter months, "Karl’s work suggests that any warming in progress is instead arriving in winter .. "; "And the warming (in alaska) is more pronounced in wintertime, just as the computer models of the greenhouse effect predict. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Alaska is warming because of the build-up of greenhouse gases."

Fourthly, whilst tropospheric temperatures have been rising there has been a drop in temperatures above the troposphere. Above the troposphere is firstly the stratosphere which extends between 15-50 kilometres above the Earth’s surface. Above the stratosphere is the mesosphere which extends between 50-90 kilometres and above that, on the edge of space, is the thermosphere. There has been a drop in stratospheric, mesospheric, and thermospheric temperatures.

Cfcs are a greenhouse gas so they boost the greenhouse effect when released into the atmosphere. However, cfcs also destroy stratospheric ozone. Ozone is also a greenhouse gas, so the depletion of stratospheric ozone reduces the stratospheric greenhouse effect and this cools the stratosphere. It was thus argued, "The United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Office suggest that depletion of the ozone layer by cfcs may in effect let more heat out through the holes than was thought, making the gases responsible for cooling the atmosphere." Stratospheric ozone absorbs ultra-violet radiation and thus contributes to the stratospheric greenhouse effect. This also reduces stratospheric temperatures as a result of the destruction of stratospheric ozone. In other words, the destruction of stratospheric ozone causes two cooling processes, the decreasing absorption of infra-red radiation from the Earth’s surface and the decreasing absorption of ultraviolet radiation from the sun, "It has been clear for some years that ozone depletion in the stratosphere is causing cooling there. More recently, modellers have suggested that this cooling is being transmitted to the upper levels of the troposphere as well.."; "Depletion of the ozone layer brings about cooler temperatures."

In the mid 1990s it was stated that satellites had not detected an increase in global temperatures. This view has been criticized for a couple of reasons. Firstly, satellites measure average temperatures throughout the Earth’s atmosphere so the warming of the troposphere is being counterbalanced by the cooling of the stratosphere, "For almost twenty years, while temperatures at ground level round the world have continued to rise inexorably, the warming has failed to penetrate the atmosphere. In wide areas some three kilometres above Earth, the atmosphere has actually been cooling. Since 1979 noaa’s instruments have been measuring microwave radiation released by the atmosphere. So far, and in stark contrast with the ground-based meteorological stations, the satellites have apparently picked up little evidence of warming."; .. "there are millions of infrared measurements by satellites, which see the Earth as a whole (including its atmosphere), and which monitor its infrared radiation to space - Earthlight, invisible to human eyes. If the body in question is Earth, its temperature seen from space is measured to be minus 19C. But when measured from within the atmosphere its average temperature is plus 14C."

The second criticism of the satellites measurements is that the satellites were dropping out of their orbit, "One of the last props supporting critics of theories of global warming is crumbling. Satellite data which suggested the Earth’s lower atmosphere is cooling were a red herring. No one was aware that the satellites were slipping from their orbits and giving misleading readings, say scientists. The average surface temperature is increasing by around 0.13% per decade, while the lower stratosphere, just above the troposphere, is cooling by about 0.5C per decade. On average the satellites would have fallen in altitude by 1.2 kilometres every year .. Wentz and schabel found that the mysterious cooling trend was actually a warming trend of 0.07C per decade."; "Frank wentz of remote sensing systems in santa rosa, california, points out that data being beamed down from satellites had been interpreted as if the satellites were in a stationary, unchanging orbit. No-one, he remarks, took account of the slippage over time of the satellites as they were inexorably pulled in closer to the Earth because of atmospheric friction. Wentz re-did the calculations to account for the real angle and discovered a warming trend of 0.07C per decade ..."

However, there are critics of this latter view, "The satellite scientists acknowledge the error, but say that it makes no difference - because they have found another error that cancels it out. They claim that, once both corrections are incorporated into the data, the atmosphere really is cooling - and so the puzzle remains."

The temperature of the mesosphere above the stratosphere is falling, "Meanwhile, we now find that the mesosphere, between 50 and 90 kilometres up, has been cooling by as much as a degree every year for the last 30 years - ten times faster than anyone had predicted. Gary Thomas .. believes it is the latest, the biggest and the most unequivocal signal that the global climate really is changing."

"The sky is falling in because of greenhouse gases, scientists warned yesterday. They say the thermosphere, at the edge of Earth and space, has dropped 8 kilometres in 38 years. Martin jarvis and a team from the british antarctic survey say the lower atmosphere is warming and the upper is cooling. This causes pressure to drop and the sky to fall. But it’s still 300 kilometres above our heads. Jarvis said: "The fall isn’t harmful but shows the damage we can cause."; "Studies have revealed the temperature of the upper atmosphere has fallen from -40C to over -70C over the past 30 year. Even at lower levels where commercial aircraft fly, it is dropping by at least half a degree a year. Experts fear an ozone hole is developing over the arctic the size of the one already detected over the antarctic."

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THE EVIDENCE OF ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL BURNING

PART ONE: THE GEOPHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE.