I recently watched two videos related to climate change. In Climate the Movie: The Cold Truth there is a very good description of historical temperatures and CO2 trends. In a Debate on Climate Alarmism Dr. Jordan Peterson and Steven Bonnell II also addressed the link between temperature and CO2. This article explains why Bonnell’s rationale that we must reduce CO2 emissions to avert catastrophe includes an example of cherry picking “when people choose data that supports their position and “ignore evidence that they dislike”.
The rationale used for New York’s Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) that reducing GHG emissions will affect climate is of special interest to me. This example is a key component of that rationale. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 400 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Debate on Climate Alarmism
The video clip is only for a portion of longer discussion. There were a couple of issues discussed that piqued my interest. Peterson and Bonnell argued about the ethics of subjecting the world’s poor to hardships now in the hopes of preventing worse impacts in the future. The subject of this post is their debate about climate model limitations and the historical record of temperature and CO2 emissions.
Bonnell supports the narrative that because we have recently seen the hottest years on record that coincides with increases in GHG emissions that this correlation proves causation. He argued that because we just had another one of the hottest years that must mean something. Peterson responded that the hottest period depends on the time frame. They argued about which time frames should be used. I am going to address Bonnell’s claim that from the start of the industrial age the temperatures have risen faster than in the past. This is cherry picking because the start of the industrial age is just about the same as the end of the Little Ice Age. I recently watched “Climate the Movie” and recalled that it included descriptions of temperature trends that contradicted this claim.
Climate the Movie: The Cold Truth
If you haven’t seen this video, then I strongly recommend that you do so before the thought police force it underground. It does a superb job explaining the manufactured climate crisis, the biased science, and the implications of this mis-placed allocation of resources to “solve” it. In addition, it is a great resource of pragmatic responses to the mainstream narrative. Andy May has provided a great addition to the documentary with his Annotated Bibliography for it. He provides references and supporting information for the material that I found very useful when putting this together.
Global Warming Trends
The rationale for changing the world’s energy system away from fossil fuels is the alleged link between global temperature trends and CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. Climate the Movie confronts the mainstream narrative in this segment of the video. Historical temperature trends over the last 50 million years show that we are at the end of an ice age and activists are “saying it is too hot”. The 5-million-year record shows a trend to lower temperatures accompanied by greater fluctuations. Another graph covers the current ice age with lows during periods when the globe is covered in ice and slightly warmer periods when the glaciers are minimal. The temperatures over the last 2,000 years are shown with Roman Warm Period, the cold dark age, the medieval warm period, and the Little Ice Age leading up to today.
In my opinion, the variations over the last 2,000 years are compelling evidence that natural climate variation is so large that any tweak from a change in the greenhouse gas effect is minimal. If I thought that we understood this natural climate variation, then I would be more receptive to claims that climate model projections for the future are credible.
The documentary discusses evidence that CO2 is a driver of climate change that is the ultimate rationale for New York’s Climate Act and any other plan to transform the energy system. Recall that cherry picking “ignores evidence” inconsistent with advocacy arguments. Historically CO2 and temperature are correlated but temperature increases before CO2 increases completely contrary to the premise. This inconsistency is surely ignored evidence characterizing cherry picking.
The documentary also addresses Bonnell’s claim that the correlation of CO2 and temperature from the start of the industrial age is evidence that we can control the climate by limiting CO2 emissions. This video segment compares recent CO2 emissions and temperature changes, but to rebut this claim Andy May’s Annotated Bibliography provides more persuasive documentation.
The Annotated Bibliography includes a section titled “From 1945 to 1976 the world cooled”. It includes the following plot of global temperatures and carbon dioxide. Bonnell believes that increasing temperatures since the end of the Little Ice Age are caused by increases in CO2. This graph does not support that claim. From 1850 to 1910 temperatures trend slightly down and CO2 trends slightly up. From 1910 to 1944 there is little change in the CO2 trend but the temperature trends up markedly. CO2 emissions don’t start to rise significantly until the end of World War II in 1945 but from 1944 to 1976 the global temperature trends down. For the remaining two periods shown in the graph temperature and CO2 correlate well.
The following table lists the temperature trends (degrees C per century) for all five periods shown in the graph. Bonnell’s claim that the correlation of CO2 and temperature from the start of the industrial age is proof that we can control the climate by limiting CO2 emissions is clearly contradicted by this information. In the first place, CO2 cannot be a driver until emission increases post 1944. There is a good correlation between 1976 and the present but two things have to be ignored for the rationale to be valid. Temperature did not trend upwards until 32 years after the CO2 emissions increased significantly and there was a similar increase in temperature from 1910 to 1944 as that observed since 1976. I believe this shows that natural climate variation caused the 1910 to 1944 warming and I do not believe that anyone has proven that the same natural climate drivers are not affecting the recent warming. I think you could even argue that the observed natural climate variation that caused the first warming of 1.4 deg C per century should be subtracted from the late 20th century warming of 1.8 deg C per century to put an bound on anthropogenic effects. That means that CO2 induced warming could not be more than 0.4 deg C per century. I do not think that represents catastrophic warming because it is much less than the interannual temperature variation observed.
Discussion
Watts Up With That recently re-published an article by Francis Menton that addressed New York’s desperate attempts to cover up the inescapable fact that using currently available wind, solar, and energy storage technologies will not work. At his blog and Watts Up With That there are many more comments than I see here. One comment caught my eye.
Warren Beaton claimed that deniers have no credibility left:
They can cite no evidence or peer reviewed scientific sources that contradict anthropogenic global warming. They have no consistent scientific theory of the behavior of the climate system. It’s ‘every man for himself’ in the Denial Community. They cherry pick data and argue illogically.
I replied to that comment “I think that the new video Climate the Movie – The Cold Truth contradicts just about everything that you say here.” His comment is a great example of my Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York Principle 5: The more vociferous/louder the criticisms made by a stakeholder the more likely that the stakeholder is guilty of the same thing.
Consider his comments relative to this issue. Andy May has provided extensive evidence including peer reviewed articles documenting the observed temperature and CO2 emissions trends. The basic tenet of anthropogenic global warming believers like Beaton is that the correlation between CO2 and global warming evident since 1976 proves that CO2 is the control knob for climate. Simple analysis shows that there is no correlation between 1850 and 1976 and there was a similar period of warming from 1910 to 1944 so that claim cannot be true.
The issue of no consistent scientific theory describes the unfortunate fact that we do not understand natural climate variability. The warming since 1850 has been inconsistent and must include significant natural inputs but there is no agreement about those effects. Until we understand natural drivers I cannot see any reason to place any faith in projections of climate out for hundreds of years.
Finally, the claim that deniers cherry pick data is ripe (sorry I could not resist the pun) for comment. Bonnell simply repeats the mantra that since 1850 temperatures have gone up and GHG emissions have gone up so there must be a link. I showed that to make that argument he had to cherry pick the data to support the claim.
Conclusion
Climate the Movie: The Cold Truth is a valuable resource to address the over-simplified theory of anthropogenic climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions. In this example, the claim that recent record warmth has to be related to those emissions is not supported by the trends of warming and emissions since 1850. That claim can only be justified by cherry picking data.