The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) is hyperventilating about its claim that 2024 is the first full year to exceed the1.5C above pre-industrial (1855) temperature level.
The C3S adds that 2024 is confirmed to be the warmest year on record globally, and 2024 is the first calendar year that the average global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above the 1850 pre-industrial level. (See Copernicus Service Climate change Service, Jan 10, 2024 downloaded 1/1024).
Both of those statements proved to be incorrect (typical climate hyperbole) but the chattering, climate addicted media did no checking and only added to the hyperbole.
The Guardian’s Oliver Millman added: “2024 Was The Hottest Year On Record …US Scientists Confirm” by Oliver Millman, 1/10/24. “Climate crisis is pushing humanity into temperatures we have never previously experienced.”
My first complaint is the hypocrisy of using poor Nicholas Copernicus, (1473-1543) one of the early fathers of modern science as the “sponsor” of the less than scientific “climate service”.
Copernicus a 15thcentury Polish polymath and astronomer most likely would have objected to the use of his name to give credence to an organization which tends toward religion rather than objective unbiased science. It was Copernicus who proposed the revolutionary heliocentric model for the solar system—a theory anathema to religious dogma and ideologues of that time, who — insisted that only an Earth centric system —which God created—could be considered. All other theories could not be considered, evaluated or even discussed.
Much like modern day climate-change dogmatists, adherents of the geocentric system of the 15th century preferred authors and reports which used observations to support their theories, and ignored those that did not. They preferred to posit a theory and garner facts to support their theory, rather than make observations using inductive reasoning to gather observations from which to develop a working hypothesis …like Copernicus.
Copernicus was a free thinker first…and famously stated (in a here a shortened form). “True knowledge is the result of an evaluation of what we know we know, and what we know we don’t know.” If only the EU, C3S would actually incorporate Copernicus’ directive on knowledge into their calculations..what they think they know may more closely approximate Copernicus’ ideas of true knowledge.
Copernicus, a true scientist who put his own carefully recorded observations before commonly accepted theories and religious dogma, suffered in silence and kept his major life’s work unpublished, rather than face opprobrium and personal attack, well aware that his observations, analysis and valid conclusions were not “acceptable” to the dogmatists of his day.
His major opus (De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, or “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies”) published in 1543 would make Copernicus immediately famous. De Revolutionibus was long completed, though Copernicus fearful of the outcry and personal attacks, only permitted it to be published from his deathbed. A great scientist and thinker, he was not a battling heroic figure of science…perhaps unlike Darwin who stoically faced his detractors.
But what about the EU Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the statements of what they think they know? They think they know that the Earth temperature is static, that 1850 was somehow a stable temperature period from which they could evaluate our more recent temperatures.
The idea of a static Earth is like the idea of an earth-centric solar system…the facts and observations do not match with the dogma that is preferred by the climate ideologues.
The fact is that Earth is a living planet with a molten interior which generates massive amounts of heat and outpourings of molten magma, charged often with volcanic gases. Earth’s surface has islands and continents of lighter rocks floating upon a surface of dense dark rocks which underlay the continents and comprise the surface of the ocean basins. The continents slide over the denser rock surface and collide, separate and recombine in a long period cyclic pattern. Thus the Earth’s atmosphere and its temperature is a result of the interaction of the rocky Earth, interior Earth and the organisms living on the surface—the biosphere. These forces are in constant flu and dynamic change—-the opposite of static or stable temperatures like the 1850-59 period which the C3S and others would like which to think as the point at which the Earth should be and remain.
So it takes some mental un-Copernian mental contortions to claim that 1850 should be some basis point from which we must decide how warm or cool our planet should be. But that is what the C3S think what they know.
Sadly, when an hypothesis begins to have the acceptance level of religious doctrine, as has the climate change “religion”, enormous peer and economic pressures are placed on researchers to confirm the doctrine (theory or hypothesis) with supporting data and submerge or ignore data that does not support the accepted theory. The economic social and academic advancement pressures too often result in heightened levels of what is often euphemistically termed “confirmation bias”.
But what about past Earth temperatures on our constantly changing, colliding continents, mountain building, belching out of gas, with growth and demise of forests and other organism which altered the mixture atmospheric gases of the physical Earth?
As a result, Earth temperatures have varied enormously over the planet’s long history, largely due to the levels of vulcanism and related amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. (Vulcanic out gassing generates mostly CO2 and H2O with minor amounts of other gases such as sulfides) Outgassing has generated gases which have interacted with the oceans, lithosphere and atmosphere over Earth’s long history.
The glacial epochs are an example. Where I sit and write this today, in a home on the top of an 150 foot high Pleistocene glacial moraine which was, 17,000 years ago, covered by more than 1,000 feet of glacial ice. That massive ice sheet which left behind automobile-sized boulders on the property has since melted back to Greenland, due to the Earth’s generalized warming trend of the last 20 millennia.
So rather than being static, Earth’s temperature's have always flucuated. Earth’s warmest and more recent periods occurred during the Cretaceous (Age of Dinosaurs) 145-66MYA when a great deal of vulcanism, and sea floor spreading generated large amounts of CO2, a greenhouse gas. This caused extensive global warming. As a result, Earth temperatures rose in Cretaceous times to its highest level during the entire Phanerozoic Era (an era which spanned @ 500My).
During the Cretaceous Period average surface land temperatures in the tropics were about 35C (95F). During this period the tropical Atlantic Ocean surface water temperatures reached about 29C (84F). No glacial ice sheets existed in the Arctic or Antarctic, and sea level was much higher than today.
Temperature change, a direct result of the Earth’s dynamic nature is the natural state of the Earth. It has been warmer and cooler many times…..but never has remained static or stable over any considerable length of time.
Relatively recent studies of long ice cores (@ 2 miles long) taken in the glacial ice of central Greenland called temperature “proxies” have permitted scientists to reconstruct changes in temperatures using ratios of Oxygen isotopes ( O2 gas occurs in a light form O16, and a heavy form O18). Meteorologists have established that the lighter isotope (O16) occurs at a higher level in cold air. Making controlled tests and relating this back to laboratory experiments can generate actual temperature estimates taken from the ratio of oxygen in measured sections of the ice cores. These data can be relatable as proxies for global temperatures for the last 10 thousand years. (See Jason Box et.al, Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Air Temperature Variability 1840-2007, J.Climate, 22, pp 4029-4049. And Carbon Brief, carbonbrief.org, author, Zeke Hausfather, 3/5/2019,)
The Jason Box Ice core data and Carbon Brief, data indicate temperature of Greenland ice core data which may be used as proxies to make the following estimates of global temperatures. These data are imperfect as an estimate of actual temperatures but can be used to indicate generalized trends. If Greenland was much warmer than today we can assume that North America was also warmer—by how much is less definite:
8000 years ago global temperatures (as recorded in Greenland Ice cores) was 3.2C warmer than that of the 1850-59 preindustrial level climate activists have established as a base line. Eight millennia ago there were no major anthropogenic additions of CO2, people were burning dried cow dung and sparse wood for fuel. At that time, 8000 BP the Neolithic Revolution was occurring in the Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia in Middle East. The last of the megafauna of Ice Age die off. Glaciers melt, sea level rises. Early humans began making more refined stone tools, which were specialized for one purpose than being multipurpose in the Paleolithic. They were also domesticating crops and animals. Small settlements began to develop into the first cities.
5200 years ago global temperatures in Greenland were warmer than today and well higher than the 1850-59 “preindustrial level” The Stone Age ends when humans in Near East began making tools of bronze. In Egypt writing is developed and history is recorded. In North America indigenous peoples around Great Lakes discover native copper and use it to fashion jewelry, knives, and pendants.
Skipping a good deal of time…
1900 CE global temperatures were just as they are today @1.5C warmer than the 1850 59 preindustrial level, coal and oil were in use as fuels but not as much as we use today yet global temperatures were at the same level.
1940 CE. global temperatures were are @ 2.0 C warmer than the 1850 59 preindustrial level, yet the level of coal and oil consumption was at a small fraction of modern use. These results should be investigated further.
So what do we know we know…First we know that the Earth’s temperature fluctuations are the natural state. WE know that for the last 20 thousand years we have been in an Earth warming period and the glaciers all around the world are retreating not because of human intervention—they were retreating long before humans trod the land. We know that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will increase global warming. We know we don't know whether the Earth temperature trends warmer or cooler…a new glacial era is very possible. We know we know that the year 2024 was probably not the hottest in human history. We know that the 1900s probably had similar temperatures as today. The 1940s was decidedly hotter (but with much less hyperbole about climate change and fewer temp recordings). And 8000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent the temperatures were more than twice the so called preindustrial level. So the hyperbole of the c3s and the media is just that hyperbole…
Finally as the history of the Earth idncates the Earth will get cooler or warmer…we can not tell. We can be sure our feeble attempts at climate control will not change very much. We should not turn to rubbing dry sticks together to keep warm..we are best served by ending the precipitous acts of those who think that we are faced with an existential threat…yes the world is getting warmer, and our excesses have increased that warming trend—but we did not precipitate the warming trend that has been going on for the last 20 millennia—we only started burning coal and oil in excess only a century ago.
However..there is no harm in moderating our own impact on the atmosphere…We can reduce greenhouse gas emission without crippling our economy. We can modulate temperatures and reduce fossil fuel consumption, we can protect all forests whch act as sinks for carbon, we can plant more trees, we can cut down less forests, we can be better wiser more humane conservators of our fabulous earth and its magnificent diverse lithosphere oceans and biosphere. We can protect all of our lonely blue planet in the black void or space —most likely the only one in our galaxy. it’s unique in the near universe—perhaps the entire universe-like you.
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