Ian Bradford: Ignoring Climate Reality

There are a number of examples where the amount of carbon dioxide does not correlate with a temperature rise. Why are they continually ignored?   

Climate alarmists think that because carbon dioxide continues to rise and they put forward the idea that we have global warming then it is clear that the two show a correlation. So if one quantity rises and another quantity rises, then there must be correlation.  There are many cases where this is not true.   

Ani O’Brien, in a recent article, gives one example.  On a hot day, ice cream sales increase and shark attacks also increase.  So, there is a correlation between ice cream sales and shark attacks, at least that would be the thinking of climate alarmists. Of course, it’s not ice cream sales that causes shark attacks but simply the warm weather.  On a hot day people would likely have an ice cream and be at the beach having a swim. 

Starting at the beginning, let’s go back in time.  This graph has been displayed before many times. 

Between 400 and 500 million years ago the earth was in the middle of an ice age as shown by the very low temperature given by the red line. But the carbon dioxide was high at about 4500 parts per million (ppm). (The blue line).  That’s at least ten times the carbon dioxide level at present where now the temperature is about 20 deg C. According to climate alarmists a very high amount of carbon dioxide should signify a very warm earth, BUT it was in the middle of an ice age!  So, even these two lots of readings indicate NO correlation between the concentration of carbon dioxide and the earth’s temperature. Look at recent times for example. The temperature of the earth remained steady at about 20 degrees while carbon dioxide levels fell steadily.  

It is a concern that carbon dioxide levels have been falling for about the last 150 million years.  If it falls to about 150 ppm then most plants die and we as a human race are in real trouble as we cannot exist without plants. It is concerning that a group in the UK is actively capturing carbon dioxide and removing it from the atmosphere. They don’t seem to understand the seriousness of what they are doing.

Of course, thermometers were not available nor were people back millions of years ago. So proxies are used to find the amount of carbon dioxide and the temperatures. Proxies are physical characteristics of things available at the time.  For example, tree rings can give an idea of temperature. In general, the closer together are the rings then the slower the growth and so the colder it must have been. Ice cores contain small pockets of air and this can be analized to find the concentration of carbon dioxide present at the time the ice core was formed. Sediments from lake bottoms at the time contain pollen grains which give an idea of the temperature as the pollen tells what plants were growing at the time and the plants can give an indication of temperature. 

Related to the graph above, a team of researchers has successfully analyzed ancient air bubbles trapped in  1.4 billion year old salt crystals northern Ontario, Canada.  This analysis gave measurements of atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide levels from the Mesoproterozoic era.  This was a time of very little significant evolutionary change. This era lasted from 1.8 to 0.8 billion years ago. It was marked for very low levels of oxygen and slow evolutionary progress. Oxygen was about 3.7% of today’s levels. But Carbon Dioxide was found to be ten times higher than pre-industrial levels. So here we had high levels of carbon dioxide without human interference! 

Throughout geological history, carbon dioxide levels rose and fell long before humans came on the scene. 

Moving on to more recent times. 

The IPCC report 2007 stated:  The Working group 4^th assessment concluded that most of the observed increase in the globally averaged temperatures since the mid 20^th Century (Since 1950), is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic, (Human caused) greenhouse concentrations. Referring of course, mostly to carbon dioxide. 

This statement was seriously incorrect. Since 1944, for 33 years, the observed temperature of the earth actually fell.  That takes us to around 1977. 

Graph shows the steady fall in temperature from about 1944 to 1977.  During this time, carbon dioxide levels rose from about 310 ppm to 332 ppm.

Then there was a warming. It is this warming period that is quoted by climate alarmists. The fall in temperature between 1944 and 1977 is never mentioned. Then from about 1995 to at least 2014 the temperature of the earth stayed the same- a hiatus. So for the 57 years the IPCC talks about –from 1950 to 2007 when the report came out, for 39 of those years the temperature of the earth actually fell or stayed the same. The IPCC statement from 2007 is incorrect. Here is what Canadian Geophysicist Norm Kalmanovitch writes: “Twentieth century global warming did not start till 1910. By that time CO2 emissions had already risen by the expanded use of coal,  that had powered the Industrial Revolution, and emissions only increased slowly from 3.5 G tonnes in 2010 to 4 G tonnes by the end of the second world war. 

It was the post war industrialisation that caused the rapid rise in human caused CO2 emissions but by 1945 when this began, the earth was already in a cooling phase that started around 1942 and continued till about 1977. With 32 years of rapidly increasing global temperatures and only a minor increase in CO2 emissions followed by 33 years of slowly cooling global temperatures with rapid increases in global CO2 emissions it was completely wrong for the IPCC to make any claim that CO2 emissions were primarily responsible for 20^th Century global warming.

The Economist in 2013 which always advocated strong policies to control CO2 emissions was puzzled over the absence of warming for at least 15 years. This cooling, despite CO2 emissions from humans increasing at an increased rate. Scientists Fyfe, Gillettt and Zwiers in 2013, showed that the climate models at the time had experienced a systematic failure. The observed data showed a large difference from the forecasts. 

The IPCC in their forecasts also predicted that because of hotter and drier conditions on the ground, there would be expanded desertification and deforestation. However under the aerial fertilisation effect, plants grow better in an atmosphere containing more carbon dioxide.  Greatly increased biomass has been clearly shown to exist.

 

A joint study by USDA and the US Dept. Of Energy, showed also that with increased carbon dioxide plants used water more efficiently. Plant yield rose as high as 80% in some cases and less water was used due to the faster growth.  

The picture above shows the Sahel region. 

The Sahel is a semi-arid strip bordering the Sahara Desert, and to the south of it. The area has suffered droughts and famines from the 1960’s through to about 1990. The lack of rainfall was the problem. Many residents left for the coast. However, since about 1980 rainfall has increased.  This has caused an increase in growth which in turn causes more rain. What was barren land before with just rock and sand is now growing plants. The southern border of the Sahara has been slowly retreating, and this is making farming possible in what used to be a very arid region. All regions across the Sahel are greening. In addition to the increase in rainfall, the increase in carbon dioxide has also played its part. More carbon dioxide means the stomata in the plants do not have to remain open for as long and so water loss from the plant is reduced. People are now returning to the area. Farming is now viable again.  

There was a time when the Sahara was covered in vegetation with lakes and rivers. It could be that we may return to that situation. More and more land for a growing earth population.

 Temperature comes first then CO2 follows. 

There is a good argument for stating that warming comes first then CO2 follows.  if you take a can of beer or sprite out of the fridge and take the top off there is a small outpouring of gas as it is under a small pressure.  If it is left out for some hours all the carbon dioxide dissolved in the liquid is emitted into the atmosphere. This is because the drink warms above the fridge temperature.  Warmer water holds less carbon dioxide than cold water.  The carbon dioxide molecules acquire more kinetic energy, and so some are able to escape from the liquid. At present the oceans are warming, so the sudden increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could be put down to it escaping from the warming oceans which contain about 70% of all the earth’s carbon dioxide.  Of course, if the oceans cool then carbon dioxide is absorbed from the atmosphere.  On a long time scale carbon dioxide emitted from the sea in warm periods gets dissolved again in the cold deep oceans by currents off Greenland and emerges 500-800 years later in the air over the Pacific after a long deep sea trek. So the CO2 lags the climate by about 500-800 years. This is backed up by ice core data. The current increase in carbon dioxide levels is an after effect of the Medieval warm period.  This took place about 500-800 years ago and was warmer than the current period. So the carbon dioxide from the Medieval warm period has trekked from the Greenland area and reached areas around the equator where the warming oceans have caused its release.  

That Carbon dioxide follows temperature has been determined by some well qualified scientists:  H.M. Fischer, et al, 1999,  U. Siegenthatler, et al, 2005, N Callion et al, 2003,  Monnen et al,  2005 and Muddlesee et al. 2001.    

What is the warming effect of carbon dioxide as its concentration increases?

Many climate alarmists think there is a linear relationship between the amount of carbon dioxide and the level of warming. So they say that if we double the amount of carbon dioxide from the present amount ie from about 420 ppm to 840 ppm then the warming effect would also double.  That probably means they would say the average earth temperature would also double. But the warming effect is NOT linear, but it is in fact a logarithmic relationship.  Below is the logarithmic graph showing the warming effect up the vertical axis, and the carbon dioxide concentration along the horizontal axis. The text in red says: Most of the warming effect of carbon dioxide occurs in the first 20 ppm.  The blue section shows the warming effect from pre-industrial times. 

 

The graph shows that most of the warming effect occurred before the Industrial revolution.  Any increase in carbon dioxide in today’s world has only a tiny effect on temperature.  

The human caused global warming hypothesis never should have found its way anywhere close to a policy maker’s desk let alone be used to legitimize the transfer of trillions of dollars - a wealth transfer from citizens of capitalist countries and the endangerment of millions of lives of people who can no longer afford to feed themselves due to climate actions and the resultant increased costs of energy and food. 

Ian Bradford, a science graduate, is a former teacher, lawyer, farmer and keen sportsman, who is writing a book about the fraud of anthropogenic climate change.