2004

The annual report of the U. S. Climate Change Science Program for fiscal years 2004-5, entitled, Our Changing Planet, was released on August 25.  It was immediately hailed as a turn-around in the Bush Administrations position by the media and environmental groups.

 The New York Times in a story by Andrew Revkin on August 25 set the tone, and an editorial the next day called the report a striking shift in the way the Bush administration has portrayed the science of climate change.  Other newspaper editorial columns and environmental groups jumped on this interpretation.

The striking shift is confined to several short passages in a 130-page document that are less qualified and more direct than in the FY 2003 edition.  The statements that attracted the most attention are the following:

Multiple ensemble simulations of the 20th century climate have been conducted using climate models that include new and improved estimates of natural and anthropogenic forcing.  The simulations show that observed globally averaged surface air temperatures can be replicated only when both anthropogenic forcings, e.g., greenhouse gases, as well as natural forcings such as solar variability and volcanic eruptions are included in the model.  These simulations improve on the robustness of earlier work (pages 46-7).

 Comparison of index trends in observations and model simulations shows that North American temperature changes from 1950 to 1999 were unlikely to be due only to natural climate variations.  Observed trends over this period are consistent with simulations that include anthropogenic forcing from increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols.  However, most of the observed warming from 1900 to 1949 was likely due to natural climate variation (page 47).

 Administration officials disputed that the report represents a striking shift in their position.  In a Washington Post article on Aug. 27, White House Science Adviser John Marburger, one of the signatories to the report, was quoted as saying that the findings had no implications for policy.

 Further, a New York Times reporter covering the presidential campaign put the question directly to President Bush (Aug. 27): Asked why the administration had changed its position on what causes global warming, Mr. Bush replied, Ah, we did?  I don’t think so.

The report may be found on the web at http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/ocp2004-5/default.htm.

“Computers Add Sophistication, but Don’t Resolve Climate Debate” – “When the Bush administration issued an update last week on federal climate research, it was criticized with equal vigor by environmentalists and by industry-backed groups.

The update featured new computer simulations showing that the sharp rise in global temperatures since 1970 could only be explained by human influences, mainly rising levels of greenhouse gases.” (New York Times)

Oddly, Meehl’s graphic, reproduced here from the NYT, is truncated at 1999, just post-peak of the powerful 1997/98 El Nio-induced temperature spike evident in both MSU and GISS datasets. MSU data indicates a peak in April of 1998 at +0.746C (annual mean +0.472C) and GISTEMP peaked in February of that year at +0.97C (annual mean +0.711C) – by March ’99 both had fallen significantly, to -0.088C (annual mean -0.022C) and +0.3C (annual mean +0.437C) respectively.

We’re sure the resultant impression of runaway warming in Meehl’s graph is purely accidental. Basing his anomalies graphic on the 1890-1919 average is also a rather novel approach, other items here based on the climatological mean (1951-1980 average).

Regardless, Meehl’s graphic sure differs greatly from this one derived from one of the best financed and arguably best maintained near-surface datasets in the world – the continental United States of America. Kind of odd, considering they’re depicting the same period, that one indicates significant and quite rapid warming while the other shows no increase in 7 decades. Even more strangely, the GISSTEMP near-surface global mean temperature anomaly graph below does not appear to support Meehl’s version either.

So, which ‘reality’ is being modeled then?

The thumbnail to the left links to a graphic of lower troposphere temperature anomalies determined from data captured by NOAA satellite-mounted MSUs. July, 2004 global mean -0.213.

The thumbnail on the right is linked to a graphic of temperature anomalies as suggested by the NASA GISS surface temperature analysis (GISTEMP), a near-surface temperature amalgam – July, 2004 global mean +0.3.

Plotted together – the increasing disconnect between these datasets is obvious. The question is: how does the near-surface amalgam produce a resulting anomaly >0.5C warmer than so-called satellite temps? This does not accord with the enhanced greenhouse hypothesis. Under that hypothesis the troposphere should warm and some of that increase should be reflected subsequently in near-surface measures – diametrically opposite to what has supposedly been measured.

This leaves us with several possibilities: the enhanced greenhouse effects works nothing like we suppose; the lower troposphere measures are incorrect; the near-surface amalgam is incorrect or; some combination of the above. Although there are many uncertainties regarding climate we think we have a fair understanding of the greenhouse effect – if not then the entire argument is moot. That leaves the temperature records. Of these, the satellite data has been validated against balloon-sonde measures while the near-surface amalgam is “odd man out.” Satellite data gives near-complete global coverage while near-surface records increasingly reflect temperatures in cities and at airports, an urbanization of the record accelerated by closure of rural recording stations and urban development.

So, what are these computers modeling? Is it enhanced greenhouse effect (EGE) or urban heat island effect (UHIE)?