No one lives
in the average temperature of Earth.
Local
temperatures may be important to people.
An unusually
cold winter could be noticeable.
An unusually
hot summer could be noticeable.
You'd be
unlikely to notice if the average temperature where you live was one or two
degrees warmer than it had been 100 years earlier, assuming you lived that
long.
And if you did
notice, you'd probably be happy about the slight warming.
If someone
predicted your average local temperature in 100 years would be much warmer, you
wouldn't take him seriously.
You'd think:
'He can't accurately predict the local temperature one week from now, so why
should I believe his prediction for 100 years in the future?'
For quite a
few people, the common sense they apply to local temperatures, and
local temperature forecasts, is completely abandoned when they hear predictions
about Earth's average temperature going out 100 years in the future.
Some people
think Earth's average temperature is extremely important.
The average
temperature of Earth is not a direct measurement of anything -- it is an
ever-changing statistic that may be interesting to know, but serves no useful
purpose.
Average
temperature is a statistic used mainly for political purposes, through wild
guess extrapolations of the recent data 100 years into the future, leading to
bogus claims 'life on Earth will end as we know it' unless something is done
about global warming (i.e.; elect Democrats).
The 100-year
predictions should be treated as delusions, but a significant minority of
Americans want to believe modern life is destroying the environment, so they
accept without doubt whatever environmental 'crisis of the year' is being
publicized by their favorite leftist-biased media sources.
There have
been over a dozen 'coming environmental crises' since the 1960s, starting with
DDT, but all are now forgotten except for the current "global warming
crisis" … which someday will also be forgotten … and replaced by a new
false environmental 'boogeyman'.
If there was
any evidence climate change, which has been happening for the past 4.5 billion
years on Earth, had directly harmed humans, animals or plants, then it might
become useful to estimate Earth's average temperature.
But there has
been no visible or measurable harm from climate change, so the cost of
compiling average temperature of Earth statistics is a waste of taxpayer funds.
It would not
be a waste of taxpayer funds to run public service ads teaching people that an
ever-changing average temperature is perfectly normal for our planet, and
nothing to fear -- in fact some warming is good news.
Of course
politicians have such a long history of frequent lying to the public, and Obama
may be setting new records there, that I wonder if people would even believe
that public ad.
The only thing
people SHOULD fear are secondary effects from anti-economic growth policies
based on a false belief that a global warming catastrophe is coming.
The future
climate is not something that can be predicted with computer games -- and those
false predictions are nothing more than a boogeyman invented by extremists to
indirectly attack the economic growth and population growth they hate.
Leftists would
rather die than go through life without an alleged "crisis" they
claim can only be solved by everyone doing exactly as they say without
question, so people must vote only for Democrats, because Republicans
"don't care".
Leftist
"environmentalists" have been insulting our intelligence since the
1960s, by inventing one false environmental "crisis" after another.
All the
alleged environmental crises are said to cause the same problem: Life on Earth
'will end as we know it'.
Do you
remember the acid rain crisis, the hole in the ozone layer crisis, etc.?
A coming
environmental 'crisis' will last until the public loses interest, and then
another bogeyman will be invented … and of course the new boogeyman will
"require" the same old solution: More government regulations, more
government taxes, and micromanaging people's lives.
The latest
leftist bogeyman is "global warming" ("global cooling" for a
while in the mid-1970s).
The
wild guess computer game-based predictions of a coming global warming
catastrophe -- predictions made every year for 45 years so far -- are the
biggest hoax in human history.
The
predictions are nothing more than wildly pessimistic extrapolations of a tiny
rise of the average temperature of Earth in the past century, a change so small
that most of it may be measurement error … a harmless +1.5 degree F. rise of
the average temperature in 134 years … which is absurdly presented as
"proof" of a ramping up global warming crisis.
Question
#1: What should we call a person who predicts a
coming global warming catastrophe unless everyone does as he says without
question?
Answer
#1: A devious science-abuser.
Question
#2: What should we call a person who believes
those global warming predictions?
Answer
#2: A gullible science-denier.
Details:
The average
temperature of Earth is not a temperature measurement.
It is an
average of many local temperature measurements.
An average is
a statistic, not a temperature.
Sometimes the
average temperature of Earth for a specific year is compared with the average
temperature during an earlier period of several decades, to view anomalies —
that would be one statistic compared to another statistic.
I see no
reason why anyone would care if the average temperature in one year was a few
tenths of a degree different from a baseline period of perhaps 30 years, but
some people take tenth of a degree changes very seriously.
The recent
NASA announcement that 2014's average temperature was four hundredths of a
degree C. warmer than 2010, was even more bizarre.
The average
temperature of Earth is a complex statistic that can be calculated (estimated)
in many ways.
For
measurements made on Earth's surface, there are many missing data points --
places where there are no thermometers.
To calculate a
global average surface temperature, those missing data points are filled in
with wild guesses -- and that "infilling" is a huge opportunity to
'cook the books' to get whatever average one wants to show on a chart --
perhaps creating an average that best supports one's 'coming climate
catastrophe' belief, for example?
Data
corrections may be made to compensate for some known measurement errors, but
other known measurement errors may be ignored.
Unknown
measurement errors are obviously ignored, but usually implied to be small by
presenting the average temperature in hundredths of a degree C. when then true
margin of error may be as large as +/- 0.5 degrees C.
Although there
are satellites that measure variations of solar energy reaching Earth, changes
of solar energy are never discussed as a possible cause of changes to Earth's
average temperature in the mainstream media.
The (unproven)
leftist belief is that rising manmade CO2, and ONLY rising manmade CO2, is
causing a dangerous rising average temperature ... and nothing that distracts
from that message will get presented in the leftist-biased mainstream media.
Real changes in
the sun’s energy output are ignored by all climate models, and by the media.
“Climate
scientist" salaries and study grants are almost always funded by
governments … and governments want people to believe in a “coming global
warming crisis” only they can 'fight'.
The mainstream
press never discusses the fact that the primary source of climate scientist
salaries could influence what they study, and what they ignore.
“Climate
scientist" is actually a recent term adopted by climate computer modelers
who receive government grants as long as their models continue predicting a
coming “climate crisis” … that needs further study.
The mainstream
press never discusses the fact that financial rewards for making the
"right" predictions could influence assumptions used for the computer
models.
People who
question scary global warming predictions are either character attacked, or
ignored, by leftists, and are often claimed to be on some 'Big Oil' or 'Big
Coal' payroll, even when there is no truth to that claim.
Meanwhile,
scientists on the Big Government payroll act as if their source of funding
could not possibly influence their "science" (please note that I don't
consider their climate computer games to be real science, because computer
models are not real data, and without real data there is no science).
In reality,
climate modelers do not work on climate science -- what they do is most
accurately described as climate astrology (climate science is the study of the present
and past climate on Earth -- not wild guess predictions of the future climate).
People who
call themselves “environmentalists” have been predicting one false
environmental crisis after another since the 1960s, all with the same end
result: Life on Earth will end as we know it unless everyone follows their
directions without question.
Global warming
is yet another false prediction of a catastrophe, the latest in a long series
of bogus 'coming catastrophes' since the 1960s, with all others now forgotten
because they stopped scaring people.
One big problem
with Earth's average temperature data are 4.5 billion years with no data -- we
have only 150 years of very rough real-time measurements, and that's an extremely short-term period
relative to Earth's 4.5 billion year history.
Average
temperature statistics began in the mid-1800s with very few thermometers, far
from global coverage, and most of the surviving thermometers from that era read
low compared with modern accurate thermometers -- the data read from them in
the 1800s probably had an accuracy of +/- 1 degree F., at best.
All real time
average temperature statistics calculated during the past 150 years were
derived from data collected during a warming trend that started in the
mid-1800s -- a trend most likely still in progress, so record high years are
not ‘news’ at all -- new highs are expected
until that 1850 Modern Warming ends, and a cooling trend begins … and no one
knows when that will happen.
With so few
years of data, no one knows what a “normal” average temperature for Earth is,
or what a “normal” CO2 level is.
Some
environmentalists have arbitrarily decided the mid-1800’s were “normal” simply
because that marked the beginning of the Industrial Age -- something that
environmentalists hate -- but there is no logical explanation of why the mid-1800s
should be considered "normal", which implies 4.5 billion other years
were not normal.
Climate proxy
studies consistently suggest the average temperature was unusually cool in the
mid-1800s, after many unusually cool centuries (aka the Little Ice Age)
Let's put on
rose-colored glasses now, and pretend there are no measurement errors, no
financial incentives to continually predict a climate crisis, and no desire to
get attention in the media by making scary climate predictions.
After all this
pretending: Here's a question so important that
almost no scientist who studies the climate ever bothers to ask it (much less
answers it):
Why
is the average temperature of Earth important to know?
I have read climate change articles every week since 1997, and have only found one
article that claims the average temperature of Earth statistic has no value (link at end of this
article).
If a change in
the climate caused sea level rise (in progress since the last ice age ended 18,000
years ago) to accelerate, then
measurements of that would be important to people who lived on the ocean, or
near sea level.
If a change in
the climate caused a shorter and/or less productive food growing season, then
measurements of that would be important to many people.
If a change in
the climate caused people living in Florida, for one example, to have
significantly hotter summer days, then measurements of that would be important
to people living in Florida, and for people considering moving there.
I’ve
investigated the sea level rise trend, agricultural output, and record hot and
cold temperature records in various US states that interest me … and I can’t
find any climate-related problems at all.
Question: Why should
anyone care about a rough estimate of the average temperature of Earth in the
absence of any visible negative effects on humans, animals and plants from
climate change?
Answer:
No one should care about the average temperature of Earth -- it is a statistic
that is always changing, and any comparison of two points in time will ALWAYS
reveal the average temperature has changed -- either up or down. It would only
be news if the average temperature stopped changing.
Local
weather conditions are not driven by the average temperature of Earth.
So why is so
much attention paid to the average temperature of Earth, which has changed a
mere +1.5 degrees F. since 1880, with a margin of error of at least +/- 1
degree F. for 1800's thermometers (and I'm very confident modern data does NOT have
anything close to the +/-0.1 degree C. margin of error that NASA
overoptimistically claims).
The average temperature statistic is used as a political
tool to promote a global warming belief simply because there are no good
alternatives available (there are no statistics
that show climate change has harmed humans, animals, or plants -- in fact,
humans are healthier, humans live longer, and plants are growing faster, than
100 years ago).
In the absence
of any actual (not merely predicted) harm from global warming,
"environmentalists" need some real data to scare people --
predictions of a future climate catastrophe are too abstract, and too hard to
believe, if presented without any real data.
Environmentalists
use the ever changing average temperature of Earth because it is the best
boogeyman they could find.
And to make
the average temperature boogeyman work even "better" as a propaganda
tool, they ignore average temperature data from weather satellites and weather
balloons simply because those data show less warming than surface measurements
… and especially because they both show the hottest year so far was 1998, not
2014.
Climate
'astrologers' extrapolate 100 years into the future, starting with a mild,
harmless warming trend in progress since around 1850, without ever mentioning
manmade CO2 did NOT start that warming trend, and did NOT cause half the
warming since 1850 (the warming prior to 1940).
Of course they
also never mention the last ice age peaked 18,000 years ago, and was followed
by warming NOT started by manmade CO2, and the sea level rise of over 400 feet
since then was also NOT caused by manmade CO2.
In
fact, all 4.5 billion years of Earth's warming and cooling trends had natural
causes … except, it is claimed by some people, for ONE short period from the
late 1970s to late 1990s, when they (falsely) blame
the warming ONLY on manmade CO2 emissions, with NO natural causes … and,
believe it or not, they are claiming this is the first, and only, time in 4.5
billion years of Earth's changing climate, that warming was caused by manmade CO2.
The surprise
is that gullible people actually believe their 'this time the warming is
different' fantasy!
The
average temperature of Earth, after 45 years of leftist propaganda, has been
transformed from an unimportant statistic into an effective boogeyman used to
scare people … into giving their
government more power to control their lives, and later tax corporations for
their energy use, and ultimately transfer wealth from rich to poor nations for
“climate reparations”.
Whether the
average temperature of Earth is rising or falling depends entirely on the
starting and ending points one chooses for a comparison.
Average
temperature has been rising since the peak of the last ice age 18,000 years
ago.
Average
temperature has been rising since 1850, if surface measurements since then are
accurate enough to know that.
Average
temperature has been falling since the Greenhouse Ages hundreds of millions of
years ago.
Average
temperature has been falling since 1998, according to weather satellite global
data.
The average
temperature where you live may matter to you if there is a significant rising
or declining trend.
But the
average temperature of Earth does not matter at all in the absence of visible
negative effects of climate change on humans, animals and plants.
If
the average of Earth’s local temperature measurements is really one or two
degrees F. higher today, than in 1880, then so what?
Local
temperatures matter to people -- average temperatures of Earth do not.
The average
temperature of Earth only matters to people who are using that statistic for
political gains: They are trying to link a recent two-decade-long rising trend
of the average temperature with their predictions of a coming global warming
disaster, making predictions of the climate 100 years in the future seem more
reasonable (without
that (false) link to the average temperature, the 100-year predictions would
sound like what they actually are: Wild guess climate astrology scaremongering).
I hope most
people are smart enough to be very skeptical about predictions of the future —
especially predictions of a coming catastrophe unless everyone does as the
predictor says.
It used to be
that religious leaders might say: ‘Do as I say, or you will go to hell’.
That strategy
works well to control religious people.
But since the
1960s, fewer people are religious and really believe there is a hell.
Secular people
who seek power today use the same basic strategy, but must use a modified
tactic to control people.
One new tactic
that works well is to tell people: ‘Do as I say, or you will soon be living in
hell -- global warming will turn Earth itself into hell.’
The
predictions of a coming global warming catastrophe are 99% politics and 1%
science.
The
average temperature of Earth is not an important statistic, except for its use
as a boogeyman to scare people and gain political power.
At the link below is an interesting article I read
years ago on the average temperature, from the point of view of a statistician
analyzing how local temperature data are combined into a global average
temperature.
It's a complicated article, especially for someone
like me who has long forgotten all the high level math I learned while studying
engineering in 1972 and 1973, but worth reading even if you skip the math: