[1] Entry: “global warming.” American Heritage Science Dictionary. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

Page 268:

An increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere, especially a sustained increase great enough to cause changes in the global climate. The Earth has experienced numerous episodes of global warming through its history, and currently appears to be undergoing such warming. The present warming is generally attributed to an increase in the greenhouse effect, brought about by increased levels of greenhouse gases, largely due to the effects of human industry and agriculture.

[2] Webpage: “Glossary.” Marine Conservation Biology Institute. Accessed May 3, 2023 at <www.marine-conservation.org>

“Global warming—The theory that the world’s average temperature is increasing due to the burning of fossil fuels and other forms of energy resulting in higher atmospheric concentrations of gases such as carbon dioxide.”

[3] Report: “Environmental Sustainability: An Evaluation of World Bank Group Support.” World Bank, Independent Evaluation Group, 2008. <documents.worldbank.org>

Glossary (page liii): “Climate Change Change of climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and that is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”

[4] Book: Green Issues and Debates: An A-to-Z Guide. By Howard Schiffman and Paul Robbins. SAGE Publications, 2011.

Page 500: “Climate Change: A term used to describe short and long-term effects on the Earth’s climate as a result of human activities such as fossil fuel combustion and vegetation clearing and burning.”

[5] Webpage: “Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC).” World Climate Research Programme. Last updated July 6, 2011. <wcrp.ipsl.jussieu.fr>

“The WCRP [World Climate Research Programme] Joint Scientific Committee established a dedicated Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC) cross-cutting activity….”

NOTE: “The World Climate Research Programme is sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization].”

[6] Report: The Global Climate Change Regime: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead.” By Benito Müller. Oxford Climate Policy, February 2002. <www.oxfordclimatepolicy.org>

Page 3:

The most general distinction between the causes of the current climatic changes is thus between “natural” on the one hand, and “anthropogenic” (“human-induced,” “man-made”), on the other. A paradigm of natural climate variations are the ice-age cycles of geological time scales, some of which prove to be closely correlated with anomalies in the terrestrial orbit.⁵ Yet there are other natural causes which can lead to changes in regional and global climates.

NOTE: “Oxford Climate Policy was registered in April 2005 for the general purpose of capacity building in the context of the UN climate change negotiations, and is charged in particular with managing the Oxford Fellowship Programme of the European Capacity Building Initiative….”

[7] Book: Exploitation, Conservation, Preservation: A Geographic Perspective on Natural Resource Use. By Susan L. Cutter and William H. Renwick. Wiley, 1999.

Page 371: “Anthropogenic Of human origin, such as carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuel combustion.”

[8] Entry: “greenhouse effect.” American Heritage Dictionary of Science. Edited by Robert K. Barnhart. Houghton Mifflin, 1986.

1 The absorption and retention of the sun’s radiation in the earth’s atmosphere, resulting in an increase in the temperature of the earth’s surface. The greenhouse effect is due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere, which allows shortwave solar radiation to reach the earth’s surface but prevents reradiated longer infrared wavelengths from leaving the earth’s atmosphere, thus trapping heat. The carbon dioxide reduces the amount of heat energy lost to outer space. The phenomenon has been called the “greenhouse effect,” although the analogy is inexact because a real greenhouse achieves its results less from the fact that the glass blocks reradiation in the infrared than from the fact that it cuts down the convective transfer of heat (S. Fred Singer).

[9] Book: Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. Edited by David E. Alexander and others. Kluwer, 1999. Article: “Greenhouse Effect.” By Richard A. Houghton. Pages 303–306.

Page 303: “The natural greenhouse effect is not only real; it is a blessing. As a result of this effect, the Earth is about 33ºC warmer than it would be without it. Without it, the average temperature of the Earth’s surface would be below 0ºC, and life, as we know it, would not exist.”

[10] Book: Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. Edited by David E. Alexander and others. Kluwer, 1999. Article: “Greenhouse Effect.” By Richard A. Houghton. Pages 303–306.

Page 303: “Concern about the greenhouse effect is, strictly speaking, a concern about the enhanced greenhouse effect expected as a result of [human] emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.”

[11] Book: Atmospheric Chemistry. By Ann M. Holloway and Richard P. Wayne. Royal Society of Chemistry, 2010.

Page 17:

Partly because the infrared bands of the various components overlap, the contributions of the individual [radiation] absorbers do not add linearly. Table 2.1 shows the percentage of [radiation] trapping that would remain if particular absorbers were removed from the atmosphere. We see that the clouds only contribute 14 per cent to the trapping with all other species present, but would trap 50 per cent if the other absorbers were removed. Carbon dioxide adds 12 per cent to the trapping of the present atmosphere: that is, it is a less important trapping agent than water vapor or clouds. On the other hand, on its own CO2 would trap three times as much as it actually does in the Earth’s atmosphere.

[12] Book: Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather, Volume 1. By Stephen H. Schneider. Oxford University Press, 2011.

Page 102:

NOTE: The troposphere “is the layer of the atmosphere closest to Earth’s surface. People live in the troposphere, and nearly all of Earth’s weather—including most clouds, rain, and snow—occurs there. The troposphere contains about 80 percent of the atmosphere’s mass and about 99 percent of its water.” [Article: “Troposphere.” Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2004.]

[13] Book: Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments. Edited by Vivien Gornitz. Springer, 2009. Article: “Atmospheric Evolution, Venus.” By Bruce Fegley, Jr. Pages 75–84.

Page 78: “Earth is about 50% covered by water clouds at any time. The H2O abundance in the troposphere† ranges from 1 to 4% and is highest near the equator and lowest near the poles.”

† NOTE: The troposphere “is the layer of the atmosphere closest to Earth’s surface. People live in the troposphere, and nearly all of Earth’s weather—including most clouds, rain, and snow—occurs there. The troposphere contains about 80 percent of the atmosphere’s mass and about 99 percent of its water.” [Article: “Troposphere.” Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2004.]

[14] Webpage: “Climate Change—Frequently Asked Questions.” U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory. Accessed January 17, 2018. <netl.doe.gov>

What is the global warming potential of water vapor? Are the anthropogenic water vapor emissions significant?

Water vapor is a very important part of the earth’s natural greenhouse gas effect and the chemical species that exerts the largest heat trapping effect. Water has the biggest heat trapping effect because of its large concentration compared to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Water vapor is present in the atmosphere in concentrations of 3–4% whereas carbon dioxide is at 387 ppm [parts per million] or 0.0386%. Clouds absorb a portion of the energy incident sunlight and water vapor absorbs reflected heat as well.

Combustion of fossil fuels produces water vapor in addition to carbon dioxide, but it is generally accepted that human activities have not increased the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere. However an article written in 1995 indicates that water vapor concentrations are increasing. [S.J. Oltmans and D.J. Hoffman, Nature 374 (1995):146–149] Some researchers argue there is a positive correlation between water vapor in the air and global temperature. As with many climate issues, this one is still evolving.

[15] Webpage: “Climate Change Indicators: Atmospheric Concentrations of Greenhouse Gases.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Last updated August 1, 2022. <www.epa.gov>

Water Vapor as a Greenhouse Gas

Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Human activities have only a small direct influence on atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, primarily through irrigation and deforestation, so it is not included in this indicator.⁴ The surface warming caused by human production of other greenhouse gases, however, leads to an increase in atmospheric water vapor because warmer temperatures make it easier for water to evaporate and stay in the air in vapor form. This creates a positive “feedback loop” in which warming leads to more warming.

⁴ USGCRP (U.S. Global Change Research Program). 2017. Climate science special report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, volume I. Wuebbles, D.J., D.W. Fahey, K.A. Hibbard, D.J. Dokken, B.C. Stewart, and T.K. Maycock, eds.

[16] Webpage: “Climate Change—Frequently Asked Questions.” U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory. Accessed January 17, 2018. <netl.doe.gov>

What is the global warming potential of water vapor? Are the anthropogenic water vapor emissions significant?

Water vapor is a very important part of the earth’s natural greenhouse gas effect and the chemical species that exerts the largest heat trapping effect. Water has the biggest heat trapping effect because of its large concentration compared to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Water vapor is present in the atmosphere in concentrations of 3–4% whereas carbon dioxide is at 387 ppm [parts per million] or 0.0386%. Clouds absorb a portion of the energy incident sunlight and water vapor absorbs reflected heat as well.

Combustion of fossils fuels produces water vapor in addition to carbon dioxide, but it is generally accepted that human activities have not increased the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere. However an article written in 1995 indicates that water vapor concentrations are increasing. [S.J. Oltmans and D.J. Hoffman, Nature 374 (1995):146–149] Some researchers argue there is a positive correlation between water vapor in the air and global temperature. As with many climate issues, this one is still evolving.

[17] Webpage: “Climate Change Indicators: Atmospheric Concentrations of Greenhouse Gases.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Last updated August 1, 2022. <www.epa.gov>

Water Vapor as a Greenhouse Gas

Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Human activities have only a small direct influence on atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, primarily through irrigation and deforestation, so it is not included in this indicator.⁴ The surface warming caused by human production of other greenhouse gases, however, leads to an increase in atmospheric water vapor because warmer temperatures make it easier for water to evaporate and stay in the air in vapor form. This creates a positive “feedback loop” in which warming leads to more warming.

⁴ USGCRP (U.S. Global Change Research Program). 2017. Climate science special report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, volume I. Wuebbles, D.J., D.W. Fahey, K.A. Hibbard, D.J. Dokken, B.C. Stewart, and T.K. Maycock, eds.

[18] Calculated with data from:

a) Paper: “Ice Core Record of 13C/12C Ratio of Atmospheric CO2 in the Past Two Centuries.” By H. Friedli and others. Nature, November 20, 1986. Pages 237–238. <www.nature.com>

Data provided in “Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change.” U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center. <cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov>

b) Dataset: “Monthly Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations (PPM) Derived From Flask Air Samples. South Pole: Latitude 90.0S Elevation 2810m.” University of California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Accessed May 3, 2023 at <scrippsco2.ucsd.edu>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[19] Webpage: “Frequently Asked Global Change Questions.” U.S Department of Energy, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center. Last modified June 30, 2015. <cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov>

What percentage of the CO2 in the atmosphere has been produced by human beings through the burning of fossil fuels?

Anthropogenic CO2 comes from fossil fuel combustion, changes in land use (for example, forest clearing), and cement manufacture. Houghton and Hackler have estimated land-use changes from 1850–2000, so it is convenient to use 1850 as our starting point for the following discussion. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations had not changed appreciably over the preceding 850 years (IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]; The Scientific Basis) so it may be safely assumed that they would not have changed appreciably in the 150 years from 1850 to 2000 in the absence of human intervention.

In the following calculations, we will express atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in units of parts per million by volume (ppmv). Each ppmv represents 2.13 X 10¹⁵ grams, or 2.13 petagrams of carbon (PgC) in the atmosphere. According to Houghton and Hackler, land-use changes from 1850–2000 resulted in a net transfer of 154 PgC to the atmosphere. During that same period, 282 PgC were released by combustion of fossil fuels, and 5.5 additional PgC were released to the atmosphere from cement manufacture. This adds up to 154 + 282 + 5.5 = 441.5 PgC, of which 282/444.1 = 64% is due to fossil-fuel combustion.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations rose from 288 ppmv in 1850 to 369.5 ppmv in 2000, for an increase of 81.5 ppmv, or 174 PgC. In other words, about 40% (174/441.5) of the additional carbon has remained in the atmosphere, while the remaining 60%† has been transferred to the oceans and terrestrial biosphere.

The 369.5 ppmv of carbon in the atmosphere, in the form of CO2, translates into 787 PgC, of which 174 PgC has been added since 1850. From the second paragraph above, we see that 64% of that 174 PgC, or 111 PgC, can be attributed to fossil-fuel combustion. This represents about 14% (111/787) of the carbon in the atmosphere in the form of CO2.

† NOTE: Per this source cited below, carbon dioxide concentration is 414 ppm. Thus, per the logic and methodology described in this footnote, (414 ppm current CO2 abundance – 288 ppb pre-industrial CO2 abundance) / 414 ppm current CO2 abundance = 30% human contribution

[20] Webpage: “What is Ozone?” NASA Ozone Watch. Last updated February 14, 2023. <ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov>

Ninety percent of the ozone in the atmosphere sits in the stratosphere, the layer of atmosphere between about 10 and 50 kilometers altitude. …

The total mass of ozone in the atmosphere is about 3 billion metric tons. That may seem like a lot, but it is only 0.00006 percent of the atmosphere. The peak concentration of ozone occurs at an altitude of roughly 32 kilometers (20 miles) above the surface of the Earth. At that altitude, ozone concentration can be as high as 15 parts per million (0.0015 percent).

NOTE: See the next footnote for data on the concentration of ozone in different layers of the atmosphere.

[21] Calculated with data from the book: Climate Process & Change. By Edward Bryant. Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Page 22: “Table 2.2 Present gaseous composition of the Earth’s atmosphere. … Ozone O3 > 100.0 ppbv [parts per billion by volume] in stratosphere† … 10–100.0 ppbv in troposphere.‡ … About 90% of ozone is located in the stratosphere….”

CALCULATIONS:

• Stratosphere: 100 ppb / 10,000,000 = 0.00001%
• Troposphere: 10 ppb / 10,000,000 = 0.000001%

NOTES:

• † The stratosphere is the “upper portion of the atmosphere, a nearly isothermal layer (layer of constant temperature) that is located above the troposphere. The stratosphere extends from its lower boundary of about 6 to 17 km (4 to 11 miles) altitude to its upper boundary (the stratopause) at about 50 km (30 miles).” [Article: “Stratosphere.” Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2004.]
• ‡ The troposphere “is the layer of the atmosphere closest to Earth’s surface. People live in the troposphere, and nearly all of Earth’s weather—including most clouds, rain, and snow—occurs there. The troposphere contains about 80 percent of the atmosphere’s mass and about 99 percent of its water.” [Article: “Troposphere.” Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2004.]

[22] Calculated with data from the report: “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by V. Masson-Delmotte and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2021. <www.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 2: “Changing State of the Climate System.” By Sergey K. Gulev and others.

Page 20: “The globally averaged surface mixing ratio of CH4 in 2019 was 1866.3 ± 3.3 ppb [parts per billion], which is 3.5% higher than 2011, while observed increases from various networks range from 3.3–3.9% (Table 2.2; Figure 2.5b).”

CALCULATION: 1,866 ppb / 10,000,000 = 0.00019%

[23] Calculated with data from:

a) Report: “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by V. Masson-Delmotte and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2021. <www.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 2: “Changing State of the Climate System.” By Sergey K. Gulev and others. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 18: “There is a long-term positive trend of about 0.5 ppb per decade during the Common Era (CE) until 1750 CE. … Global mean CH4 concentrations estimated from Antarctic and Greenland ice cores are 729.2 ± 9.4 ppb in 1750 and 807.6 ± 13.8 ppb in 1850 (Mitchell and others, 2013b).”

b) Webpage: “Trends in Atmospheric Methane.” U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. Accessed May 3, 2023 at <www.esrl.noaa.gov>

“Global CH4 Monthly Means … December 2022: 1924.99 ppb [parts per billion] … Last updated April 5, 2023”

CALCULATION: Per the logic and methodology described above, (1,925 ppb current methane abundance – 729 ppb pre-industrial methane abundance) / 1,925 ppb current methane abundance = 62% human contribution

[24] Webpage: “Atmosphere.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Last updated April 14, 2023. <www.noaa.gov>

The atmosphere surrounds the Earth and holds the air we breathe; it protects us from outer space; and holds moisture (clouds), gases, and tiny particles. In short, the atmosphere is the protective bubble in which we live.

This protective bubble consists of several gases (listed in the table below), with the top four making up 99.998% of all gases. Of the dry composition of the atmosphere, nitrogen by far is the most common. Nitrogen dilutes oxygen and prevents rapid burning at the Earth's surface. Living things need it to make proteins.

Oxygen is used by all living things and is essential for respiration. It is also necessary for combustion (burning). Argon is used in light bulbs, in double-pane windows, and to preserve museum objects such as the original Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Plants use carbon dioxide to make oxygen. Carbon dioxide also acts as a blanket that prevents the escape of heat into outer space.

These percentages of atmospheric gases are for a completely dry atmosphere. The atmosphere is rarely, if ever, dry. Water vapor (water in a gas state) is nearly always present, up to about 4% of the total volume.

In the Earth's desert regions (30°N/S), when dry winds are blowing, the water vapor contribution to the composition of the atmosphere will be near zero. Water vapor contribution climbs to near 3% on extremely hot/humid days. The upper limit, approaching 4%, is found in tropical climates.

[25] Book: Carbon Dioxide Capture for Storage in Deep Geologic Formations – Results from the CO2 Capture Project, Volume 2. Edited by David C. Thomas. Elsevier, 2005.

Section 5: “Risk Assessment,” Chapter 25: “Lessons Learned from Industrial and Natural Analogs for Health, Safety and Environmental Risk Assessment for Geologic Storage of Carbon Dioxide.” By Sally M. Benson (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Division Director for Earth Sciences). Pages 1133–1142.

Page 1133:

Carbon dioxide is generally regarded as a safe and non-toxic, inert gas. It is an essential part of the fundamental biological processes of all living things. It does not cause cancer, affect development or suppress the immune system in humans. Carbon dioxide is a physiologically active gas that is integral to both respiration and acid-base balance in all life.

[26] Book: Electrochemical Remediation Technologies for Polluted Soils, Sediments and Groundwater. By Krishna R. Reddy, Claudio Cameselle. Wiley 2009.

Chapter 124: “Coupled Electrokinetic-Thermal Desorption.” By Gregory J. Smith.

Page 511: Carbon dioxide is a nonpolar and organic gas, which facilitates its ability to dissolve organic liquids and gases.”

[27] Book: Dictionary of Environment and Development: People, Places, Ideas and Organizations. By Andy Crump. MIT Press, 1993.

Page 42: [CO2] is a “colourless, odourless, non-toxic, non-combustible gas.”

[28] Book: The Science of Air: Concepts And Applications (2nd edition). By Frank R. Spellman. CRC Press, 2009.

Page 21: “Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a colorless, odorless gas (although it is felt by some persons to have a slight pungent odor and biting taste), is slightly soluble in water and denser than air (one and half times heavier than air), and is slightly acidic. Carbon dioxide gas is relatively nonreactive and nontoxic.”

[29] Book: Dictionary of Environment and Development: People, Places, Ideas and Organizations. By Andy Crump. MIT Press, 1993.

Page 42: “It is known that carbon dioxide contributes more than any other [manmade] gas to the greenhouse effect….”

[30] Report: “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by V. Masson-Delmotte and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2021. <report.ipcc.ch>

Page 180: “The FAR [First Assessment Report] assessed that some other trace gases, especially CFCs [chlorofluorocarbons], have global warming potentials hundreds to thousands of times greater than CO2 and CH4 [methane], but are emitted in much smaller amounts. As a result, CO2 remains by far the most important positive anthropogenic driver….”

Page 642: “Reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)—the most important greenhouse gas emitted by human activities—would slow down the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.”

Page 713: “The total influence of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) on the Earth’s radiative balance is driven by the combined effect of those gases, and the three most important—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O)….”

[31] Synthesis report: “Climate Change 2007.” Based on a draft prepared by Lenny Bernstein and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 36: “Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important anthropogenic GHG [greenhouse gas]. Its annual [anthropogenic] emissions have grown between 1970 and 2004 by about 80%, from 21 to 38 gigatonnes (Gt), and represented 77% of total anthropogenic GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions in 2004 (Figure 2.1).”

[32] Book: Understanding Environmental Pollution (3rd edition). By Marquita K. Hill. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Page 187: “CO2 is … vital to life. Trees, plants, phytoplankton, and photosynthetic bacteria, capture CO2 from air and through photosynthesis make carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and other biochemicals. Almost all biochemicals found within living creatures derive directly or indirectly from atmospheric CO2.”

[33] Book: Carbon Dioxide Capture for Storage in Deep Geologic Formations – Results from the CO2 Capture Project, Volume 2. Edited by David C. Thomas. Elsevier, 2005.

Section 5: “Risk Assessment,” Chapter 25: “Lessons Learned from Industrial and Natural Analogs for Health, Safety and Environmental Risk Assessment for Geologic Storage of Carbon Dioxide.” By Sally M. Benson (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Division Director for Earth Sciences). Pages 1133–1142.

Page 1133: “Carbon dioxide is generally regarded as a safe and non-toxic, inert gas. It is an essential part of the fundamental biological processes of all living things. It does not cause cancer, affect development or suppress the immune system in humans. Carbon dioxide is a physiologically active gas that is integral to both respiration and acid-base balance in all life.”

[34] Webpage: “Greenhouse Gases.” Commonwealth of Australia, Parliamentary Library, December 24, 2008. Accessed October 30, 2017 at <bit.ly>

“At very small concentrations, carbon dioxide is a natural and essential part of the atmosphere, and is required for the photosynthesis of all plants.”

[35] Book: Understanding Environmental Pollution (3rd edition). By Marquita K. Hill. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Page 187: “Moreover, CO2 is a waste gas respired by animals, plants, and many bacteria.”

[36] Textbook: Comprehensive Biotechnology XI. By A. Jayakumaran Nair. Laxmi Publications, 2007.

Page 181: “[P]hotosynthesis and respiration are interlinked, with each process depending on the products of the other. … It should be emphasized that plants respire just like any other higher organism, and that during the day this respiration is masked by a higher rate of photosynthesis.”

[37] Book: Climate and Climate Change. Edited by John P. Rafferty. Britannica Educational Publishing, 2011.

Page 238: “Natural sources of atmospheric CO2 include outgassing from volcanoes, the combustion and natural decay of organic matter, and respiration by aerobic (oxygen-using) organisms.”

[38] Webpage: “Volcanic Gases Can Be Harmful to Health, Vegetation and Infrastructure.” U.S. Geological Survey. Last updated May 10, 2017. <volcanoes.usgs.gov>

Magma contains dissolved gases, which provide the driving force that causes most volcanic eruptions. As magma rises towards the surface and pressure decreases, gases are released from the liquid portion of the magma (melt) and continue to travel upward and are eventually released into the atmosphere. Large eruptions can release enormous amounts of gas in a short time. The 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo is thought to have injected more than 250 megatons of gas into the upper atmosphere on a single day. However, even if magma never reaches the surface, gases can often escape continuously into the atmosphere from the soil, volcanic vents, fumaroles, and hydrothermal systems.

By far the most abundant volcanic gas is water vapor, which is harmless. However, significant amounts of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen halides can also be emitted from volcanoes. Depending on their concentrations, these gases are all potentially hazardous to people, animals, agriculture, and property.

Carbon dioxide constitutes approximately 0.04% of the air in the Earth’s atmosphere. In an average year, volcanoes release between about 180 and 440 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. When this colorless, odorless gas is emitted from volcanoes, it typically becomes diluted to low concentrations very quickly and is not life threatening. However, because cold carbon dioxide gas is heavier than air it can flow into in low-lying areas where it can reach much higher concentrations in certain, very stable atmospheric conditions. This can pose serious risks to people and animals.

[39] Article: “The Ocean’s Carbon Balance.” By Holli Riebeek. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, July 1, 2008. <earthobservatory.nasa.gov>

The ocean does not take up carbon uniformly. It breathes, inhaling and exhaling carbon dioxide. In addition to the wind-driven currents that gently stir the center of ocean basins (the waters that are most limited by stratification), the ocean’s natural, large-scale circulation drags deep water to the surface here and there. Having collected carbon over hundreds of years, this deep upwelling water vents carbon dioxide to the atmosphere like smoke escaping through a chimney. The stronger upwelling brought by the cold phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation apparently enhanced the size of the chimney and let more carbon escape to the atmosphere.

[40] Report: “Carbon Cycling and Biosequestration: Integrating Biology and Climate Through Systems Science.” U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, December 2008. <genomicscience.energy.gov>

Page 4: “About 90 GT [gigatons] of carbon flow in and out of the ocean, primarily through air-sea exchange at the surface.”

[41] Book: Climate and Climate Change. Edited by John P. Rafferty. Britannica Educational Publishing, 2011.

Page 238: “[Human] activities increase atmospheric CO2 levels primarily through the burning of fossil fuels (principally oil and coal, and secondarily natural gas, for use in transportation, heating, and the generation of electrical power) and through the production of cement. Other anthropogenic source [sic] include the burning of forests and the clearing of land.”

[42] Book: Dictionary of Environment and Development: People, Places, Ideas and Organizations. By Andy Crump. MIT Press, 1993.

Page 42: “[CO2] is produced when any material containing carbon is burned. It is also released by natural combustion processes such as volcanic eruptions.”

[43] Webpage: “Pools, Fluxes, and a Word About Units.” University of New Hampshire, Globe Carbon Cycle Project. Accessed January 18, 2018 at <globecarboncycle.unh.edu>

Plants exchange carbon with the atmosphere relatively rapidly through photosynthesis, in which CO2 is absorbed and converted into new plant tissues, and respiration, where some fraction of the previously captured CO2 is released back to the atmosphere as a product of metabolism. Of the various kinds of tissues produced by plants, woody stems such as those produced by trees have the greatest ability to store large amounts of carbon. Wood is dense and trees can be large. Collectively, the Earth’s plants store approximately 560 PgC [a Petagram of carbon (Pg), also known as a Gigaton (Gt), is equal to 10¹⁵ grams or one billion tonnes], with the wood in trees being the largest fraction.

[44] Webpage: “Biological Carbon Sequestration.” U.S. Geological Survey, March 3, 2022. <www.usgs.gov>

“Biological carbon sequestration is the natural ability of life and ecosystems to store carbon. Forests, peat marshes, and coastal wetlands are particularly good as storing carbon. Carbon can be stored in plant tissue, such as long-lived tree bark or in extensive root systems.”

[45] Report: “The Importance of Soil Organic Matter: Key to Drought-Resistant Soil and Sustained Food Production.” By Alexandra Bot and José Benites. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 2005. <www.fao.org>

Pages 48–49:

As shown in Table 7, soil can play a part in mitigating CO2 levels (Paustian, 2002). This removal process is achieved naturally, and quite effectively, through photosynthesis. Living plants take CO2 from the air in the presence of sunlight and water, convert it into seeds, leaves, stems and roots. Part of the CO2 is retained or “sequestered,” or stored as C [carbon] in the soil when decomposed.

In particular, systems based on high crop-residue addition and no tillage tend to accumulate more C in the soil than is lost to the atmosphere. Carbon sequestration in managed soils occurs when there is a net removal of atmospheric CO2 because C inputs (crop residues, litter, etc.) exceed C outputs (harvested materials, soil respiration, C emissions from fuel and the manufacture of fertilizers, etc.) (Izaurralde and Cerri, 2002). Management practices that increase soil C comply with a number of principles of sustainable agriculture: reduced tillage, erosion control, diversified cropping system, balanced fertilization, etc.

[46] Webpage: “Carbon Cycle.” University of Washington, Center for Environmental Visualization. Accessed May 10, 2018 at <ooicruises.ocean.washington.edu>

“The oceans regulate climate in part by absorbing and storing carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Gas exchange between the atmosphere and the oceans removes carbon dioxide (CO2) and sequesters some of it for long periods of time in the deep sea.”

[47] Report: “Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by Thomas Stocker and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013. <www.climatechange2013.org>

Page 472: “Atmospheric CO2 is exchanged with the surface ocean through gas exchange. This exchange flux is driven by the partial CO2 pressure difference between the air and the sea.”

[48] Report: “Recovery Act Funding for DOE Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) Projects.” By Peter Folger. Congressional Research Service, February 18, 2016. <fas.org>

Page 2 (of PDF):

Summary

Federal policymakers have long been interested in the potential of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) as a mitigation strategy for lowering global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). Congress has appropriated more than $7 billion since FY2008 to CCS activities at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). …

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act; P.L. 111-5) provided $3.4 billion for CCS projects and activities at DOE. The large infusion of funding was intended to help develop technologies that would allow for commercial-scale demonstration of CCS in both new and retrofitted power plants and industrial facilities by 2020. …

Some stakeholders argue that DOE’s CCS programs have been inadequately funded, providing less incentive than they should for deploying CCS. One study concluded that even the financial boost from the Recovery Act was insufficient. To be sure, large-scale CCS projects are complex endeavors, requiring substantial capital investment and multiyear planning and construction schedules. However, the conclusion that more federal funding by itself would be sufficient to support development and commercialization of CCS technology may be overly simplistic. DOE acknowledges that many of the Recovery Act-funded projects were technologically difficult and challenging, but it does not consider the relinquishment of unspent funds to signify project failure. DOE notes that due to its spending on CCS and its partnerships with industry, the costs of capturing CO2 have dropped significantly and its projects have stored more than 10 million metric tons of CO2.

… EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] asserts that CCS is technically feasible. Technical feasibility, however, is just one factor of many that determine whether a project successfully reaches its goal of producing electricity and capturing CO2 at commercial scale. EPA states that implementing partial CCS in the rule is likely to boost future research and development in CCS technologies and to make CCS implementation more efficacious and cost-effective. That may be the case; however, other issues also affect CCS implementation. These issues, as well as the outcomes from promulgation of EPA’s final rule, will likely continue to shape the outlook for CCS commercialization and deployment.

[49] Report: “Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage.” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2005. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 3:

Carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) is a process consisting of the separation of CO2 from industrial and energy-related sources, transport to a storage location and long-term isolation from the atmosphere. …

Capture of CO2 can be applied to large point sources. The CO2 would then be compressed and transported for storage in geological formations, in the ocean, in mineral carbonates, or for use in industrial processes.

Page 341:

The major components of a carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) system include capture (separation plus compression), transport, and storage (including measurement, monitoring and verification). In one form or another, these components are commercially available. However, there is relatively little commercial experience with configuring all of these components into fully integrated CCS systems at the kinds of scales which would likely characterize their future deployment. The literature reports a fairly wide range of costs for employing CCS systems with fossil-fired power production and various industrial processes. The range spanned by these cost estimates is driven primarily by site-specific considerations such as the technology characteristics of the power plant or industrial facility, the specific characteristics of the storage site, and the required transportation distance of carbon dioxide (CO2). In addition, estimates of the future performance of components of the capture, transport, storage, measurement and monitoring systems are uncertain.

[50] Book: Zeolites and Mesoporous Materials at the Dawn of the 21st Century. Edited by A. Galarneau and others. Elsevier, 2001.

Chapter: “Evolution of Refining and Petrochemicals. What Is the Place of Zeolites?” By C. Marcilly. Pages 37–60.

Page 49: “The … [anthropogenic CO2 figure] does indeed appear low compared with the 770 Gt/year of natural CO2 emissions…. But unlike natural emissions which are part of the natural carbon cycle and are offset over one year by the same volume of CO2 that is absorbed or transformed, these … [anthropogenic emissions] would be considered as an excess volume of emissions, not offset in the yearly cycle (this still has to be ascertained).”

NOTE: The two footnotes below independently corroborate this footnote.

[51] Calculated with data from:

a) Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. <www.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 7: “Couplings Between Changes in the Climate System and Biogeochemistry.” By Kenneth L. Denman and others. Pages 501–587. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 512: “Natural processes such as photosynthesis, respiration, decay and sea surface gas exchange lead to massive exchanges, sources and sinks of CO2 between the land and atmosphere (estimated at ~120 GtC yr–1) and the ocean and atmosphere (estimated at ~90 GtC yr–1….)”

Page 514:

The gross natural fluxes between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere and between the oceans and the atmosphere are (circa 1995) about 120 and 90 GtC yr^–1 [gigatonnes of carbon], respectively. Just under 1 GtC yr^–1 of carbon is transported from the land to the oceans via rivers either dissolved or as suspended particles (e.g., Richey, 2004). While these fluxes vary from year to year, they are approximately in balance when averaged over longer time periods. Additional small natural fluxes that are important on longer geological time scales include conversion of labile organic matter from terrestrial plants into inert organic carbon in soils, rock weathering and sediment accumulation (‘reverse weathering’), and release from volcanic activity. The net fluxes in the 10 kyr [thousand years] prior to 1750, when averaged over decades or longer, are assumed to have been less than about 0.1 GtC yr^–1.

b) Article: “Global Carbon Budget 2022.” By Pierre Friedlingstein and others. Earth System Science Data, 2022. Pages 4811–4900. <essd.copernicus.org>

Page 4817: “Table 1. Factors Used to Convert Carbon in Various Units (by convention, Unit 1 = Unit 2 × conversion). … Unit 1 [=] GtCO2 (gigatonnes of carbon dioxide) … Unit 2 [=] GtCO2 (gigatonnes of carbon dioxide) … Conversion [=] 3.664”

CALCULATIONS:

• 120 billion tons of carbon + 90 billion tons of carbon = 210 billion tons of carbon
• 210 billion tons of carbon × 3.664 molecular weight of CO2/carbon = 769.4 billion tons of CO2

[52] Calculated with data from the report: “Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by Thomas Stocker and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013. <www.climatechange2013.org>

Page 471:

Figure 6.1 | Simplified schematic of the global carbon cycle. Numbers represent reservoir mass, also called “carbon stocks” in PgC [Petagram of Carbon] (1 PgC = 10¹⁵ gC) and annual carbon exchange fluxes (in PgC yr–1). … Red arrows and numbers indicate annual “anthropogenic” fluxes averaged over the 2000–2009 time period. These fluxes are a perturbation of the carbon cycle during Industrial Era post 1750. These fluxes (red arrows) are: Fossil fuel and cement emissions of CO2 (Section 6.3.1), Net land use change (Section 6.3.2), and the Average atmospheric increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, also called “CO2 growth rate” (Section 6.3). The uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the ocean and by terrestrial ecosystems, often called “carbon sinks” are the red arrows part of Net land flux and Net ocean flux. … Uncertainties are reported as 90% confidence intervals. Emission estimates and land and ocean sinks (in red) are from Table 6.1 in Section 6.3. … The atmospheric inventories have been calculated using a conversion factor of 2.12 PgC per ppm (Prather and others, 2012).

NOTES:

• Combining the data above yields 760 billion metric tons of natural CO2 emissions per year.
• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[53] Calculated with data from:

a) Article: “Global Carbon Budget 2022.” By Pierre Friedlingstein and others. Earth System Science Data, 2022. Pages 4811–4900. <essd.copernicus.org>

Pages 4813–4814: “Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere in a changing climate is critical to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe and synthesize data sets and methodologies to quantify the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO2 emissions (E_FOS) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land-use change (E_LUC), mainly deforestation, are based on land use and land-use change data and bookkeeping models. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly, and its growth rate (G_ATM) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. … For the year 2021, E_FOS increased by 5.1% relative to 2020, with fossil emissions at 10.1 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1 (9.9 ± 0.5 GtC yr−1 when the cement carbonation sink is included), and E_LUC was 1.1 ± 0.7 GtC yr−1 , for a total anthropogenic CO2 emission (including the cement carbonation sink) of 10.9 ± 0.8 GtC yr−1 (40.0 ± 2.9 GtCO2).”

b) Dataset: “2022 Global Budget 2022 v1.0.” Global Carbon Project. Accessed May 17, 2023 at <www.icos-cp.eu>

Tab: “Global Carbon Budget”

NOTES:

• Combining the data above yields 40 billion metric tons of manmade CO2 emissions per year.
• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[54] Calculated with data from:

a) Report: “Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by Thomas Stocker and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013. <www.climatechange2013.org>

Page 471:

Figure 6.1 | Simplified schematic of the global carbon cycle. Numbers represent reservoir mass, also called “carbon stocks” in PgC [Petagram of Carbon] (1 PgC = 10¹⁵ gC) and annual carbon exchange fluxes (in PgC yr–1). … Red arrows and numbers indicate annual “anthropogenic” fluxes averaged over the 2000–2009 time period. These fluxes are a perturbation of the carbon cycle during Industrial Era post 1750. These fluxes (red arrows) are: Fossil fuel and cement emissions of CO2 (Section 6.3.1), Net land use change (Section 6.3.2), and the Average atmospheric increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, also called “CO2 growth rate” (Section 6.3). The uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the ocean and by terrestrial ecosystems, often called “carbon sinks” are the red arrows part of Net land flux and Net ocean flux. … Uncertainties are reported as 90% confidence intervals. Emission estimates and land and ocean sinks (in red) are from Table 6.1 in Section 6.3. … The atmospheric inventories have been calculated using a conversion factor of 2.12 PgC per ppm (Prather and others, 2012).

b) Webpage: “Working Group III: Mitigation, Appendix IV Units, Conversion Factors, and GDP Deflators.” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Accessed February 27, 2018 at <www.ipcc.ch>

“GtC – gigatonnes of carbon (1GtC = (109 tonnes C = 3.67Gt carbon dioxide)) … PgC – petagrams of carbon (1 PgC - 1 GtC)”

NOTES:

• Combining the data above yields 33 billion metric tons of manmade CO2 emissions in 2013.
• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[55] 40 billion tons of manmade CO2 emitted per year / 770 billion tons of natural CO2 emitted per year = 5.2%

[56] Calculated with data from:

a) Article: “Global Carbon Budget 2022.” By Pierre Friedlingstein and others. Earth System Science Data, 2022. Pages 4811–4900. <essd.copernicus.org>

Pages 4813–4814: “Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere in a changing climate is critical to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe and synthesize data sets and methodologies to quantify the five major components of the global carbon budget and their uncertainties. Fossil CO2 emissions (E_FOS) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, while emissions from land-use change (E_LUC), mainly deforestation, are based on land use and land-use change data and bookkeeping models. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly, and its growth rate (G_ATM) is computed from the annual changes in concentration.”

Page 4834: “The airborne fraction (AF), defined as the ratio of atmospheric CO2 growth rate to total anthropogenic emissions, i.e. AF = G_ATM/(E_FOS + E_LUC)….”

b) Dataset: “2022 Global Budget 2022 v1.0.” Global Carbon Project. Accessed May 17, 2023 at <www.icos-cp.eu>

Tab: “Global Carbon Budget”

NOTES:

• Combining the data above yields an airborne fraction of 52%.
• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.
• The next footnote explains the concept of “airborne fraction” and documents that it was about 57% in 2000.

[57] Paper: “Is the Airborne Fraction of Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions Increasing?” By Wolfgang Knorr. Geophysical Research Letters, November 7, 2009. <pdfs.semanticscholar.org>

Page 1: “Of the current 10 billion tons of carbon (GtC) [gigatons of carbon] emitted annually as CO2 into the atmosphere by human activities [Boden and others, 2009†; Houghton, 2008†], only around 40% [Jones and Cox, 2005] remain in the atmosphere, while the rest is absorbed by the oceans and the land biota [animal and plant life] to about equal proportions [Bopp and others, 2002].”

Page 2: “The simplest model of the atmospheric growth rate is one of a constant AF [airborne fraction] and yields f = 0.43 when fitted to all data.”

Page 3: “Remember that f represents the airborne fraction in 2000.”

NOTES:

• † Just Facts double-checked these two sources to ensure this paper accurately represents them, and it does. The first (updated to 2010) provides CO2 emissions from “fossil-fuel burning, cement manufacture, and gas flaring.” The second provides CO2 emissions from changes in land use such as deforestation. Totaling these sources yields 10.216 billion metric tons (8.749 + 1.467).

• Not all of the sources above specify whether metric or short tons (i.e., American tons = 2,000 pounds) are being cited. Metric tons seems to be the common standard, so Just Facts assumes this is the case with all sources. However, if this is not the case, the figures would not be significantly different because one metric ton equals 1.102 short tons.
• See the next footnote for data for 2000–2009, which shows about the same results as these sources.

[58] Calculated with data from the report: “Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by Thomas Stocker and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013. <www.climatechange2013.org>

Page 471:

Figure 6.1 | Simplified schematic of the global carbon cycle. Numbers represent reservoir mass, also called “carbon stocks” in PgC [Petagram of Carbon] (1 PgC = 10¹⁵ gC) and annual carbon exchange fluxes (in PgC yr–1). … Red arrows and numbers indicate annual “anthropogenic” fluxes averaged over the 2000–2009 time period. These fluxes are a perturbation of the carbon cycle during Industrial Era post 1750. These fluxes (red arrows) are: Fossil fuel and cement emissions of CO2 (Section 6.3.1), Net land use change (Section 6.3.2), and the Average atmospheric increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, also called “CO2 growth rate” (Section 6.3). The uptake of anthropogenic CO2 by the ocean and by terrestrial ecosystems, often called “carbon sinks” are the red arrows part of Net land flux and Net ocean flux. … Uncertainties are reported as 90% confidence intervals. Emission estimates and land and ocean sinks (in red) are from Table 6.1 in Section 6.3. … The atmospheric inventories have been calculated using a conversion factor of 2.12 PgC per ppm (Prather and others, 2012).

NOTES:

• Based on this data for 2000–2009, human activities released about 33 billion metric tons of CO2 per year, or about 4% of natural CO2 emissions. Natural processes absorbed the equivalent of all natural emissions plus about 57% of man-made emissions, leaving an additional 14 billion metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere each year.
• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[59] Article: “Industrial Revolution.” By Margaret C. Jacob (Ph.D., Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles). World Book Encyclopedia, 2007 Deluxe Edition.

During the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, great changes took place in the lives and work of people in several parts of the Western world. These changes resulted from the development of industrialization. …

The Industrial Revolution began in Britain (a country now known as the United Kingdom) during the late 1700’s. It started spreading to other parts of Europe and to North America in the early 1800’s. By the mid-1800’s, industrialization was widespread in western Europe and the northeastern United States.

The introduction of power-driven machinery and the development of factory organization during the Industrial Revolution created an enormous increase in the production of goods. Before the revolution, manufacturing was done by hand, or by using animal power or simple machines. … The Industrial Revolution eventually took manufacturing out of the home and workshop. Power-driven machines replaced handwork, and factories developed as the most economical way of bringing together the machines and the workers to operate them.

[60] Calculated with data from:

a) Paper: “Ice Core Record of 13C/12C Ratio of Atmospheric CO2 in the Past Two Centuries.” By H. Friedli and others. Nature, November 20, 1986. Pages 237–238. <www.nature.com>

Data provided in “Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change.” U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center. <cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov>

b) Dataset: “Monthly Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations (PPM) Derived From Flask Air Samples. South Pole: Latitude 90.0S Elevation 2810m.” University of California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <scrippsco2.ucsd.edu>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[61] Paper: “How Well Do We Understand and Evaluate Climate Change Feedback Processes?” By Sandrine Bony and others. Journal of Climate, August 1, 2006. Pages 3445–3482. <journals.ametsoc.org>

Page 3469: “[T]he snow on the Antarctic ice sheet remains frozen nearly all year-round.”

[62] Report: “Variations of Snow and Ice in the Past and at Present on a Global and Regional Scale.” Edited by V.M. Kotlyakov. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, International Hydrological Programme, 1996. <unesdoc.unesco.org>

Chapter 2: “Global Changes Over the Latest Climate Cycle According to Ice Core Data.” By V.M. Kotlyakov. Pages 9–14.

Page 11:

As polar snow is transformed to ice, the atmospheric air is trapped in bubbles. Therefore, by extracting the gases contained in ice cores, we may obtain data on the composition of the atmosphere in the past, specifically, on the concentration of greenhouse gases. In the absence of melting, the closure of ice pores proceeds at a slow pace: in central East Antarctica this process may take as much as 4000 years, during which some exchange of air between the pores and the free atmosphere takes place. Consequently the air extracted from polar ice cores is younger than the one existent at the time when the snow that formed the ice, was accumulated. Present-day analytical procedures enable us to extract some gases from the ice—carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) are the most important and measure them with great accuracy.

[63] Paper: “Timing of Atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic Temperature Changes Across Termination III.” By Nicolas Caillon and others. Science, March 14, 2003. Pages 1728–1731. <www.sciencemag.org>

“The analysis of air bubbles from ice cores has yielded a precise record of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, but the timing of changes in these gases with respect to temperature is not accurately known because of uncertainty in the gas age–ice age difference.”

[64] Image: “Carbon Dioxide in the Mid-Troposphere, July 2009.” NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, November 2009. <photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov>

This image was created with data acquired by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder instrument (AIRS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite during July 2009. The image shows large-scale patterns of carbon dioxide concentrations that are transported around Earth by the general circulation of the atmosphere. Dark blue corresponds to a concentration of 382 parts per million and dark red corresponds to a concentration of almost 390 parts per million.

[65] Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. <www.ipcc.ch>

“Technical Summary.” By Susan Solomon and others. Pages 19–91. <www.ipcc.ch>

Pages 23–24:

Long-lived greenhouse gases (LLGHGs), for example, CO2, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), are chemically stable and persist in the atmosphere over time scales of a decade to centuries or longer, so that their emission has a long-term influence on climate. Because these gases are long lived, they become well mixed throughout the atmosphere much faster than they are removed and their global concentrations can be accurately estimated from data at a few locations.

[66] Article: “Stephen Henry Schneider.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, August 3, 2010. Last updated 2/7/20. <bit.ly>

American climatologist…. As an initial member (1988) of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Schneider was one of the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] scientists who shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace with former U.S. vice president Al Gore for their work on educating the public about climate change. … He also helped found the climate project at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo., and the journal Climatic Change, which he edited until his death.

[67] Article: “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate.” By S. I. Rasool and S. H. Schneider. Science, July 9, 1971. Pages 138–141. <science.sciencemag.org>

Page 138:

Abstract

Effects on the global temperature of large increases in carbon dioxide and aerosol densities in the atmosphere of Earth have been computed. It is found that, although the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does increase the surface temperature, the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. …

Page 139:

From our calculation, a doubling of CO2, produces a tropospheric [lower atmosphere] temperature change of 0.8°K.¹² However, as more CO2 is added to the atmosphere, the rate of temperature increase is proportionally less and less, and the increase eventually levels off. Even for an increase in CO2 by a factor of 10, the temperature increase does not exceed 2.5°K. Therefore, the runaway greenhouse effect does not occur because the 15-μm CO2 band, which is the main source of absorption, “saturates,” and the addition of more CO2 does not substantially increase the infrared opacity of the atmosphere. But, if the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere becomes so high that the total atmospheric pressure is affected (which will require a CO2 increase by a factor of 1,000 or more), then the absorption bands will broaden, the opacity will increase, and the temperature may start to rise so rapidly that the process could run away.¹³ However, this appears to be only a remote possibility for Earth, even on a geological time scale, as a large buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere will be severely restrained by its interaction with the oceans, the biosphere, and the crust.¹⁴

[68] Paper: “The Role of Remote Sensing in Monitoring Global Bulk Tropospheric Temperatures.” By John R. Christy and others. International Journal of Remote Sensing, February 2011. <portal.acm.org>

Page 1:

The radiometer of the MSU [Microwave Sounding Unit] and AMSU [Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit] monitors the intensity of emissions from atmospheric oxygen near the 60 GHz absorption band. Since O2 is a well-mixed gas and its temperature is that of the atmosphere in which it is embedded, the intensity of these emissions is able to characterize the bulk layer atmospheric temperature.

The advantages of the MSU were clear in that this satellite system (1) monitored the full globe, (2) was not impacted by micro-variations in human development that plague surface thermometers, (3) was externally calibrated on each cross-track scan, (4) was essentially unaffected by clouds and (4) measured a true bulk quantity that was directly related to the energy content of the atmosphere. Climate assessments such as the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] reports included these tropospheric measurements as key climate change variables to monitor.

Page 3: “Though beginning only in late 1978, these satellite time series cover a critical time period of warming.”

[69] Paper: “Difficulties in Obtaining Reliable Temperature Trends: Reconciling the Surface and Satellite Microwave Sounding Unit Records.” By James W. Hurrell and Kevin E. Trenberth. Journal of Climate, May 1998. Pages 945–967. <doi.org>

Page 948:

The individual channels in the MSU [Microwave Sounding Unit] measure a brightness temperature, or vertically averaged atmospheric thermal emission, by molecular oxygen in the atmosphere at different spectral intervals in the oxygen absorption complex near 60 GHz. Oxygen is a very good temperature tracer for climate monitoring because it is uniformly mixed and its concentration is very stable in time.

[70] Article: “Troposphere.” Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2004.

Troposphere … is the layer of the atmosphere closest to Earth’s surface. People live in the troposphere, and nearly all of Earth’s weather—including most clouds, rain, and snow—occurs there. The troposphere contains about 80 percent of the atmosphere’s mass and about 99 percent of its water. …

Within the troposphere, the air generally grows colder as altitude increases. On average, the air temperature drops about 3.5 Fahrenheit degrees every 1,000 feet (6.5 Celsius degrees every 1,000 meters). The troposphere’s temperature averages about 59 °F (15 °C) near Earth’s surface and about –60 °F (–51 °C) at 6 miles (10 kilometers) above the surface. The troposphere’s temperature varies with latitude. At the equator, the tropopause can be as cold as –112 °F (–80 °C).

[71] Report: “State of the Climate: Upper Air, January 2011.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Climatic Data Center, February 2011. <www.ncdc.noaa.gov>

“Lower Troposphere … These temperatures are for the lowest 8 km (5 miles) of the atmosphere.”

NOTES:

• Other creditable sources provide differing heights for the lower troposphere,† perhaps as a result of the fact that the entire troposphere varies in height at different locations of the globe.‡ Just Facts uses the figure of “five miles” because it is specified by the same agency that also supplies the satellite data used to measure the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere.
• † Paper: “Development of a Compact Lidar to Profile Water Vapor in the Lower Troposphere.” By J. L. Machol and others. Ninth ARM [Atmospheric Radiation Measurement] Science Team Meeting Proceedings, San Antonio, Texas, March 22–26, 1999. <www.arm.gov> Page 2: “This system … will focus on measurements in the lower troposphere (<3 km), which contains most of the atmospheric water vapor.”
• ‡ Book: Space: From Earth to the Edge of the Universe. By Carolyn Stott and others. DK Publishing, 2010. Page 46: “The upper boundary of the troposphere varies ranging from 5 miles (8km) above the polar regions to around 10 miles (16km) at the equator.”

[72] Calculated with the dataset: “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Polar-Orbiting Satellites, Microwave Sounding Unit, Lower Troposphere (T2LT), Version 6.0.” National Space Science and Technology Center at the University of Alabama Huntsville and National Climatic Data Center of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <www.nsstc.uah.edu>

NOTES:

• The temperature increase between the 1980s and the most-recent decade is calculated by subtracting the average of the 1980s from the average of the latest available decade of data.
• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[73] Report: “Version 6.0 of the UAH Temperature Dataset Released: New LT Trend = +0.11 C/decade.” By Roy W. Spencer, John R. Christy, and William D. Braswell. National Space Science and Technology Center, April 28, 2015. <www.drroyspencer.com>

Page 1 (of PDF):

Version 6 of the UAH [University of Alabama Huntsville] MSU/AMSU [Microwave Sounding Unit/Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit] global satellite temperature dataset is by far the most extensive revision of the procedures and computer code we have ever produced in over 25 years of global temperature monitoring. The two most significant changes from an end-user perspective are (1) a decrease in the global-average lower tropospheric (LT) temperature trend from +0.140 C/decade to +0.114 C/decade (Dec. ‘78 through Mar. ‘15); and (2) the geographic distribution of the LT trends, including higher spatial resolution.

Page 2 (of PDF):

Since 1979 we have had 15 satellites that lasted various lengths of time, having slightly different calibration (requiring intercalibration between satellites), some of which drifted in their calibration, slightly different channel frequencies (and thus weighting functions), and generally on satellite platforms whose orbits drift and thus observe at somewhat different local times of day in different years. All data adjustments required to correct for these changes involve decisions regarding methodology, and different methodologies will lead to somewhat different results. …

Years ago we could use certain AMSU-carrying satellites which minimized the effect of diurnal drift, which we did not explicitly correct for. That is no longer possible, and an explicit correction for diurnal drift is now necessary. The correction for diurnal drift is difficult to do well, and we have been committed to it being empirically-based, partly to provide an alternative to the RSS [remote sensing systems] satellite dataset which uses a climate model for the diurnal drift adjustment.

Page 3 (of PDF):

Also, while the traditional methodology for the calculation of the lower tropospheric temperature product (LT) has been sufficient for global and hemispheric average calculation, it is not well suited to gridpoint trend calculations in an era when regional—rather than just global—climate change is becoming of more interest. We have devised a new method for computing LT involving a multi-channel retrieval, rather than a multi-angle retrieval.

Page 4 (of PDF):

The LT retrieval must be done in a harmonious way with the diurnal drift adjustment, necessitating a new way of sampling and averaging the satellite data. To meet that need, we have developed a new method for computing monthly gridpoint averages from the satellite data which involves computing averages of all view angles separately as a pre-processing step. Then, quadratic functions are statistically fit to these averages as a function of Earth-incidence angle, and all further processing is based upon the functional fits rather than the raw angle-dependent averages.

Finally, much of the previous software has been a hodgepodge of code snippets written by different scientists, run in stepwise fashion during every monthly update, some of it over 25 years old, and we wanted a single programmer to write a unified, streamlined code (approx. 9,000 lines of FORTRAN) that could be run in one execution if possible.

Page 16 (of PDF):

The new LT trend of +0.114 C/decade (1979–2014) is 0.026 C/decade lower than the previous trend of +0.140 C/decade, but about 0.010 C/decade of that difference is due to lesser sensitivity of the new LT weighting function to direct surface emission by the land surface, which surface thermometer data suggests is warming more rapidly than the deep troposphere. The remaining 0.016 C/decade difference between the old and new LT product trends is mostly due to the new diurnal drift adjustment procedure and is well within our previously stated range of uncertainty for this product’s trend calculation (±0.040 C/decade).

[74] Paper: “The Role of Remote Sensing in Monitoring Global Bulk Tropospheric Temperatures.” By John R. Christy, Roy W. Spencer, and William B. Norris. International Journal of Remote Sensing, February 2011. Pages 671–685. <portal.acm.org>

Page 672: “[T]he first satellite to carry the MSU [Microwave Sounding Unit] … became operational in November 1978.”

[75] Paper: “Palaeotemperatures Still Exist in the Greenland Ice Sheet.” By D. Dahl-Jensen and S. J. Johnsen. Nature, March 20, 1986. Pages 250–252. <www.nature.com>

The temperature distribution through the Greenland ice sheet at the Dye 3 borehole is a record of the past climatic changes in the Arctic. The numerical model of the temperature distribution now presented reproduces the observed temperature distribution within 0.03 K, and shows that the basal ice is still cooled 5 K by the cold ice-age climate. The results suggest a mean ice-age temperature of –32 ± 2°C, which is 12 K [22ºF] colder than the present temperature, and a precipitation rate 50 ± 25% of the present rate. Calculations of a more detailed temperature history through the present inter-glacial period reveal evidence of the AD 1920−50 maximum, the little ice age, and the Atlantic period.

[76] Paper: “Difficulties in Obtaining Reliable Temperature Trends: Reconciling the Surface and Satellite Microwave Sounding Unit Records.” By James W. Hurrell and Kevin E. Trenberth. Journal of Climate, May 1998. Pages 945–967. <doi.org>

Page 945: “A chronic difficulty in obtaining reliable climate records from satellites has been changes in instruments, platforms, equator-crossing times, and algorithms.”

[77] Paper: “The Role of Remote Sensing in Monitoring Global Bulk Tropospheric Temperatures.” By John R. Christy, Roy W. Spencer, and William B. Norris. International Journal of Remote Sensing, February 2011. Pages 671–685. <portal.acm.org>

Page 672:

At present, there are four key problems that must be quantified and removed from the raw data: (1) the slow drifting of the spacecraft through the diurnal cycle, convolving observed diurnal temperature changes into the climate signal; (2) inter-satellite biases; (3) the slow loss of altitude due to atmospheric friction, especially during solar maxima (for all but the NASA AQUA spacecraft, which has on-board propulsion); and (4) calibration changes related to the variational heating and shadowing effects on the instrument itself.

Page 673: “[M]uch effort has been devoted to understanding the errors and uncertainties that affect the trends, especially how one deals with each of the four satellite problems noted above.”

[78] Paper: “The Role of Remote Sensing in Monitoring Global Bulk Tropospheric Temperatures.” By John R. Christy, Roy W. Spencer, and William B. Norris. International Journal of Remote Sensing, February 2011. Pages 671–685. <portal.acm.org>

Page 682: “Error ranges for 31-year periods should be no larger than ±0.03ºC decade⁻¹ (i.e. net of 0.1ºC over 30+ years) for a better understanding for the response of the global climate to forcing changes. The evidence here indicates we are approaching this requirement for the lower troposphere….”

[79] Calculated with data from:

a) Dataset: “Land-Ocean: Global Means.” NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <data.giss.nasa.gov>

b) Webpage: “GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v4).” NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <data.giss.nasa.gov>

“The GISS [Goddard Institute for Space Studies] Surface Temperature Analysis version 4 (GISTEMP v4) is an estimate of global surface temperature change. Graphs and tables are updated around the middle of every month using current data files from NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] GHCN [Global Historical Climatology Network] v4 (meteorological stations), and ERSST [Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature] v5 (ocean areas)…. The following are … temperature anomalies, i.e. deviations from the corresponding 1951–1980 means.”

NOTES:

• The temperature increase between the 1880s and the current decade from 2011 to 2020 is arrived at by subtracting the average of the 1880s from the average of the current decade from 2011 to 2020.
• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[80] Calculated with data from:

a) Dataset: “HadCRUT.5.0.1.0.” Met Office Hadley Centre. Last updated January 19, 2022. <www.metoffice.gov.uk>

“Summary series … Global … CSV … Annual.”

b) Paper: “An Updated Assessment of Near-Surface Temperature Change From 1850: The HadCRUT5 Data Set.” By C.P. Morice and others. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, December 15, 2020. <agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 1: “We present a new version of the Met Office Hadley Centre/Climatic Research Unit global surface temperature data set, HadCRUT5. HadCRUT5 presents monthly average near-surface temperature anomalies, relative to the 1961–1990 period, on a regular 5° latitude by 5° longitude grid from 1850 to 2018. HadCRUT5 is a combination of sea-surface temperature (SST) measurements over the ocean from ships and buoys and near-surface air temperature measurements from weather stations over the land surface.”

NOTES:

• The temperature increase between the 1850s and the current decade from 2011 to 2020 is arrived at by subtracting the average of the 1850s from the average of the current decade from 2011 to 2020.
• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[81] Paper: “An Updated Assessment of Near-Surface Temperature Change From 1850: The HadCRUT5 Data Set.” By C.P. Morice and others. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, December 15, 2020. <agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 1:

HadCRUT5 presents monthly average near-surface temperature anomalies, relative to the 1961–1990 period, on a regular 5° latitude by 5° longitude grid from 1850 to 2018. HadCRUT5 is a combination of sea-surface temperature (SST) measurements over the ocean from ships and buoys and near-surface air temperature measurements from weather stations over the land surface.

… “HadCRUT5 analysis,” extends our estimates to locations further from the available measurements using a statistical technique that makes use of the spatial connectedness of temperature patterns. This improves the representation of less well observed regions in estimates of global, hemispheric and regional temperature change. Together, these updates and improvements reveal a slightly greater rise in near surface temperature since the nineteenth century, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, which is more consistent with other data sets. This increases our confidence in our understanding of global surface temperature changes since the mid-19th century.

Page 2:

Analyses of multidecadal temperature changes based on instrumental evidence are subject to uncertainty. Assessments of uncertainty and the influence of nonclimatic factors on observations are necessary to understand the evolution of near-surface temperature throughout the instrumental period. Known sources of uncertainty include spatial and temporal sampling of the globe (Brohan and others, 2006; Jones and others, 1997), changes in measurement practice and instrumentation (Kent and others, 2017; Parker 1994), siting of observing stations and the effects of changes in their nearby environment (Menne and others, 2018; Parker 2006), and basic measurement error.

Page 9:

HadCRUT5 now includes an ensemble spatial analysis that reconstructs more spatially extensive anomaly fields from the available observational coverage. The purpose of this analysis is to: (1) reduce uncertainty and bias associated with estimation of global and regional climate diagnostics from incomplete and uneven observational sampling of the globe; (2) provide improved estimates of temperature fields in all regions; and (3) provide a method to quantify uncertainty in anomaly patterns.

We adopt a Gaussian process based method for spatial analysis that is closely related to the ordinary kriging approach (Rasmussen & Williams, 2006), and apply the method independently to land air temperature and SST observations before merging the two to produce a global analysis.

[82] Paper: “Uncertainty Estimates in Regional and Global Observed Temperature Changes: A New Dataset From 1850.” By P. Brohan and others. Journal of Geophysical Research, June 24, 2006. <www.st-andrews.ac.uk>

Page 16: “The gridded data sets start in 1850 because there are too few observations available from before this date to make a useful gridded field.”

[83] Paper: “Uncertainty Estimates in Regional and Global Observed Temperature Changes: A New Dataset From 1850.” By P. Brohan and others. Journal of Geophysical Research, June 24, 2006. <www.st-andrews.ac.uk>

Page 3: “Uncertainties in the land data can be divided into three groups … (2) sampling error, the uncertainty in a gridbox mean caused by estimating the mean from a small number of point values”

Page 10: “However, global coverage is not complete even in the years with the most observations, and it is very incomplete early in the record.”

[84] Webpage: “CRU [Climatic Research Unit] Data Availability.” University of East Anglia, Climatic Research Unit. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <www.cru.uea.ac.uk>

Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data.

[85] Article: “Leaked Climate Change Emails Scientist ‘Hid’ Data Flaws.” By Fred Pearce. U.K. Guardian, February 1, 2010. <www.guardian.co.uk>

The history of where the weather stations were sited was crucial to Jones and Wang’s 1990 study, as it concluded the rising temperatures recorded in China were the result of global climate changes rather the warming effects of expanding cities. …

The leaked emails from the CRU [Climate Research Unit] reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang’s work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. “Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?” he asked Jones. He continued: “Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?”

[86] Paper: “Uncertainty Estimates in Regional and Global Observed Temperature Changes: A New Dataset From 1850.” By P. Brohan and others. Journal of Geophysical Research, June 24, 2006. <www.st-andrews.ac.uk>

Page 3: “Uncertainties in the land data can be divided into three groups … (3) bias error, the uncertainty in large-scale temperatures caused by systematic changes in measurement methods.”

Page 10:

The bias uncertainties are largest in the early 20th century for two reasons: Firstly the bias uncertainties in the marine data are largest then: because the uninsulated canvas buckets used in that period produced larger temperature biases than the wooden buckets used earlier (see [Rayner and others, 2006] for details). And also because the land temperature bias uncertainties (present before 1950) are larger in the tropics than the extra-tropics, so for these simple global averages, the bias uncertainty depends on the ratio of station coverage in the tropics to that in the extra-tropics, and this ratio is smaller in the 1850s than in the 1920s.

Page 15:

However, even after removing the constant offset produced by the climatology change, there are still differences between the old and new SST [sea surface temperature] series that are larger than the assessed random and sampling errors. These differences suggest the presence of additional error components in the marine data. At the moment, the nature of these error components is not known for certain, but the main difference between the old and new datasets is the use of different sets of observations [Rayner and others, 2006]. It seems likely that different groups of observations may be measuring SST in different ways even in recent decades, and therefore there may be unresolved bias uncertainties in the modern data. Quantifying such effects will be a priority in future work on marine data.

[87] Paper: “Uncertainty Estimates in Regional and Global Observed Temperature Changes: A New Dataset From 1850.” By P. Brohan and others. Journal of Geophysical Research, June 24, 2006. <www.st-andrews.ac.uk>

Page 5:

Calculation and reporting errors can be large (changing the sign of a number and scaling it by a factor of 10 are both typical transcription errors; as are reporting errors of 10 C (for example putting 29.1 for 19.1) but almost all such errors will be found during quality control of the data. Those errors that remain after quality control will be small,† and because they are also uncorrelated both in time and in space their effect on any large scale average will be negligible.

† NOTE: As detailed in the next five footnotes, NASA published a data error that affected the worldwide temperature average.

[88] Commentary: “The World Has Never Seen Such Freezing Heat.” By Christopher Booker. London Telegraph, November 16, 2008. <www.telegraph.co.uk>

On Monday, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) … announced that last month was the hottest October on record. …

… GISS’s computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs—run by the U.S. meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre … GISS began hastily revising its figures.

[89] Commentary: “OK, What Caused the Problem?” By Steve McIntyre. Climate Audit, November 16, 2008. <climateaudit.org>

Are you like me and a little puzzled as to exactly how the GHCN–GISS problem happened? GISS [Goddard Institute for Space Studies] blamed their supplier (NOAA GHCN [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Global Historical Climatology Network]). Unfortunately NOAA’s been stone silent on the matter. I checked the Russian data at meteo.ru and there was nothing wrong with it. Nor is there anything wrong at GHCN-Daily for stations reporting there. So it’s something at GHCN-Monthly, a data set that I’ve been severely critical of in the past….

I downloaded the most recent GHCN v2.mean data, unzipped it and looked at the 2008 values in the GHCN-Monthly data base. I bolded the March 2008 and April 2008 values, which are identical. …

… I’m perplexed as to how the problem occurs in the first place, given that the error doesn’t occur in original data.

[90] Commentary: “Did Napoleon Use Hansen’s Temperature Data?” By Steve McIntyre. Climate Audit, November 10, 2008. <climateaudit.org>

NASA has just reported record warmth in October throughout Russia…

… Many stations had exactly the same monthly temperatures in October as in September. Here are the last three years for the Russian station, Olenek….

This exact match of October 2008 to September 2008 was repeated at many other Russian stations. … Almaty, Omsk, Salehard, Semipalatinsk, Turuhansk, Tobol’sk, Verhojansk, Viljujsk, Vilnius, Vologda … Hatanga, Suntora, GMO ImEKF. Not all stations were affected—Dzerszan, Ostrov Kotal, Jakutsk, Cokurdah appear to have correct results.

[91] Commentary: “GISS Releases (Suspect) October 2008 Data.” By John Goetz. Watts Up With That?, October 11, 2008. <wattsupwiththat.com>

“Update 2: The faulty results have been (mostly) backed out of the GISS [Goddard Institute for Space Studies] website. The rest should be done following the federal holiday. GISS says they will update the analysis once they confirm with NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] that the software problems have been corrected.”

[92] Commentary: “Gavin Schmidt: ‘The Processing Algorithm Worked Fine.’ ” By Steve McIntyre. Climate Audit, November 12, 2008. <climateaudit.org>

In the last few days, NASA has been forced to withdraw erroneous October temperature data. The NASA GISS [Goddard Institute for Space Studies] site is down, but NASA spokesman Gavin Schmidt said at their blog outlet that “The processing algorithm worked fine.” …

Although NASA blamed the error on their supplier (GHCN [Global Historical Climatology Network]), in previous publications by Hansen and others, NASA had asserted that their supplier carried out “extensive quality control”:

The GHCN data have undergone extensive quality control, as described by Peterson and others [1998c].

and that NASA (GISS) carried out their own quality control and verification of near real-time data….

At Verhojansk station, which I selected at random from the problem Russian statements, average October 2008 temperature was reported by NASA as 0.0 degrees. This was nearly 8 deg C higher than the previous October record (–7.9 deg). Contrary to the NASA spokesman’s claims, their quality control algorithm did not work “fine.”

[93] Report: “ ‘Consensus’ Exposed: The CRU Controversy.” United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Minority Staff, February 2010. <bit.ly>

Page 23:

As noted earlier, CRU [Climate Research Unit] compiles the world’s premier temperature datasets, which the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] utilizes throughout its Assessment Reports. CRU’s datasets include the “HadCRUT3” dataset64, which contains combined global historical land and marine surface temperatures; the CRUTEM3 dataset, which contains global historical land surface temperature anomalies; and the CRU TS datasets, which contain up to nine different variables of global historical meteorological data (i.e. temperature, precipitation, cloud cover, etc.) that, among other uses, are utilized by environmental researchers for climate modeling.

Among CRU’s exposed documents is the so-called “HARRY_READ_ME” file, which served as a detailed note keeping file from 2006 through 2009 for CRU researcher and programmer Ian “Harry” Harris. As he worked to update and modify CRU TS2.1 to create the new CRU TS3.1dataset, the HARRY_READ_ME.txt details Harris’s frustration with the dubious nature of CRU’s meteorological datasets. As demonstrated through a handful of excerpts below, the 93,000-word HARRY_READ_ME file raises several serious questions as to the reliability and integrity of CRU’s data compilation and quality assurance protocols.

Excerpts:

One thing that’s unsettling is that many of the assigned WMo [World Meteorological Organization] codes for Canadian stations do not return any hits with a web search. Usually the country’s met office, or at least the Weather Underground, show up—but for these stations, nothing at all. Makes me wonder if these are long-discontinued, or were even invented somewhere other than Canada!

-----

Here, the expected 1990–2003 period is MISSING—so the correlations aren’t so hot! Yet the WMO codes and station names /locations are identical (or close). What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah there is no ‘supposed’, I can make it up. So I have :-)

-----

OH F**K THIS. It’s Sunday evening, I’ve worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I’m hitting yet another problem that’s based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it’s just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they’re found.

-----

You can’t imagine what this has cost me to actually allow the operator to assign false WMO codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a ‘Master’ database of dubious provenance (which, er, they all are and always will be).

-----

So the ‘duplicated’ figure is slightly lower.. but what’s this error with the ‘.ann’ file?! Never seen before. Oh GOD if I could start this project again and actually argue the case for junking the inherited program suite!!

-----

I am seriously close to giving up, again. The history of this is so complex that I can’t get far enough into it before by head hurts and I have to stop. Each parameter has a tortuous history of manual and semi-automated interventions that I simply cannot just go back to early versions and run the update prog. I could be throwing away all kinds of corrections to lat/lons, to WMOs (yes!), and more.

[94] Paper: “Uncertainty Estimates in Regional and Global Observed Temperature Changes: A New Dataset From 1850.” By P. Brohan and others. Journal of Geophysical Research, June 24, 2006. <www.st-andrews.ac.uk>

Page 4:

The distribution of known adjustments is not symmetric—adjustments are more likely to be negative than positive. The most common reason for a station needing adjustment is a site move in the 1940–60 period. The earlier site tends to have been warmer than the later one—as the move is often to an out of town airport. So the adjustments are mainly negative, because the earlier record (in the town/city) needs to be reduced [Jones and others, 1985, and others, 1986]. Although a real effect, this asymmetry is small compared with the typical adjustment, and is difficult to quantify; so the homogenisation adjustment uncertainties are treated as being symmetric about zero.

[95] Paper: “Uncertainty Estimates in Regional and Global Observed Temperature Changes: A New Dataset From 1850.” By P. Brohan and others. Journal of Geophysical Research, June 24, 2006. <www.st-andrews.ac.uk>

Page 4: “Uncertainties in the land data can be divided into three groups: (1) station error, the uncertainty of individual station anomalies….”

[96] Paper: “Analysis of the Impacts of Station Exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology: Network Temperatures and Temperature Trends.” By Souleymane Fall and others. Journal Of Geophysical Research, July 30, 2011. <pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com>

Page 3: “As attested by a number of studies, near-surface temperature records are often affected by time varying biases. Among the causes of such biases are station moves or relocations, changes in instrumentation, changes in observation practices, and evolution of the environment surrounding the station such as land use/cover change.”

[97] Paper: “Uncertainty Estimates in Regional and Global Observed Temperature Changes: A New Dataset From 1850.” By P. Brohan and others. Journal of Geophysical Research, June 24, 2006. <www.st-andrews.ac.uk>

Pages 2–3:

A definitive assessment of uncertainties is impossible, because it is always possible that some unknown error has contaminated the data, and no quantitative allowance can be made for such unknowns. There are, however, several known limitations in the data, and estimates of the likely effects of these limitations can be made…. This means that uncertainty estimates need to be accompanied by an error model: a precise description of what uncertainties are being estimated.

Page 13: “As with the land data, the uncertainty estimates cannot be definitive: where there are known sources of uncertainty, estimates of the size of those uncertainties have been made. There may be additional sources of uncertainty as yet unquantified (see section 6.3).”

[98] Article: “Ocean.” Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2004.

“The oceans and their marginal seas cover nearly 71 percent of the Earth’s surface, with an average depth of 3,795 metres (12,450 feet).”

[99] Paper: “Differential Trends in Tropical Sea Surface and Atmospheric Temperatures Since 1979.” By John R. Christy and others. Geophysical Research Letters, January 1, 2001. Pages 183–186. <onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 183: “Since the mid-20th century, most ships have reported SST [sea surface temperatures] from the engine intake, but up to a third have used insulated buckets or hull sensors (Folland and others, 1993). The depth of measurement ranges from less than 1 m to over 15 m.”

Page 186: “[M]ixing seawater temperatures with land-based air temperatures as is typically done.”

[100] Paper: “Global Surface Temperature Change.” By James Hansen and others. Reviews of Geophysics, December 14, 2010. <pubs.giss.nasa.gov>

Page 4: “Our standard global land‐ocean temperature index uses a concatenation of the Met Office Hadley Centre analysis of sea surface temperatures … for 1880–1981, which is ship‐based during that interval, and satellite measurements of sea surface temperature for 1982 to the present…. The satellite measurements are calibrated with the help of ship and buoy data [Reynolds and others, 2002].”

[101] Paper: “Uncertainty Estimates in Regional and Global Observed Temperature Changes: A New Dataset From 1850.” By P. Brohan and others. Journal of Geophysical Research, June 24, 2006. <www.st-andrews.ac.uk>

Page 7:

Blending a sea-surface temperature (SST) dataset with land air temperature makes an implicit assumption that SST anomalies are a good surrogate for marine air temperature anomalies. It has been shown, for example by [Parker and others, 1994], that this is the case, and that marine SST measurements provide more useful data and smaller sampling errors than marine air temperature measurements would. So blending SST anomalies with land air temperature anomalies is a sensible choice.

NOTE: Contrary to the assertion above, Just Facts found no evidence in “Parker and others, 1994” that sea surface anomalies are a good surrogate for marine air temperature anomalies. The paper used this assumption but did not show that it was valid. [Paper: “Interdecadal Changes of Surface Temperature Since the Late Nineteenth Century.” By D. E. Parker and others. Journal of Geophysical Research, 1994. Pages 14373–14399. <agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com>]

[102] Paper: “Difficulties in Obtaining Reliable Temperature Trends: Reconciling the Surface and Satellite Microwave Sounding Unit Records.” By James W. Hurrell and Kevin E. Trenberth. Journal of Climate, May 1998. Pages 945–967. <doi.org>

Page 947: “Over oceans, SSTs [sea surface temperatures] are often used as a surrogate for surface air temperature because they have much greater persistence so that fewer observations are needed to get a representative value.”

Page 962: “[I]n the Tropics … the atmosphere has a very strong direct connection to SSTs [sea surface temperatures].”

[103] Paper: “Differential Trends in Tropical Sea Surface and Atmospheric Temperatures Since 1979.” By John R. Christy and others. Geophysical Research Letters, January 1, 2001. Pages 183–186. <onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 183:

A variety of measurements indicate that the rate of atmospheric warming in the tropics since 1979 is less than the observed warming of the sea surface. This result is further examined using the high quality buoys monitored by the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in the Tropical Pacific Ocean. These buoys show cooling (most cases being statistically significant) of the air at 3m height relative to the sea at l m depth over 8 to 20‐year periods in the eastern region.

Page 186:

The results show that three measures of tropical low-mid tropospheric temperature, two of which are completely independent of SSTs [sea surface temperatures] and each other (satellite-MSU and radiosondes-HadRT), indicate a slightly negative trend (–0.01 to –0.06 K decade^-1) since 1979 while the SSTs warmed significantly (+0.13 K decade^-1).The near-surface night marine air temperatures (NMATs) show an intermediate trend. …

Using the high quality PMEL [Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory] buoy data, we have shown that the near-surface air temperature trend is significantly less positive than that of the collocated SST [sea surface temperatures] in the eastern tropical Pacific region, which is the area most closely connected to the tropics-wide, near-surface air and tropospheric temperature variations. …

… A global dataset which uses MAT [marine air temperature] rather than SST [sea surface temperature] provides a physically desirable quantity measured consistently throughout the earth—near surface air temperature—rather than mixing seawater temperatures with land-based air temperatures as is typically done.

[104] Paper: “Analysis of the Impacts of Station Exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology: Network Temperatures and Temperature Trends.” By Souleymane Fall and others. Journal of Geophysical Research, July 30, 2011. <pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com>

Page 3: “As attested by a number of studies, near-surface temperature records are often affected by time varying biases. Among the causes of such biases are station moves or relocations, changes in instrumentation, changes in observation practices, and evolution of the environment surrounding the station such as land use/cover change.”

Page 5:

[T]he standard dataset for examination of changes in United States temperature from 1895 to the present is the USHCNv2 [U.S. Historical Climatology Network, Version 2]. USHCNv2 stations were selected from among Cooperative Observer Network (COOP) stations based on a number of criteria including their historical stability, length of record, geographical distribution, and data completeness.

Page 8: “The site surveys were performed between 2 June 2007 and 23 February 2010, and 1007 stations (82.5% of the USHCN network) were classified (Figure 1).”

Page 9: “[O]nly those surveys that met quality control requirements are used in this paper, namely 82.5% of the 1,221 USHCN stations.”

Page 10: “In addition to station ratings, the surveys provided an extensive documentation composed of station photographs and detailed survey forms. The best and poorest sites consist of 80 stations classified as either CRN [Climate Reference Network] 1 or CRN 2 and 61 as CRN 5 (8% and 6% of all surveyed stations, respectively).”

NOTE: Since 8% of the stations are classified as CRN 1 or 2, the remaining 92% of the stations are classified as CRN 3, 4, or 5. Per the footnote below, all of these stations are positioned in sites that can cause errors of 1.8ºF or more.

[105] “Climate Reference Network Site Information Handbook.” U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, December 2002. <www1.ncdc.noaa.gov>

Page 6:

Classification for Temperature/Humidity

Class 1 – Flat and horizontal ground surrounded by a clear surface with a slope below 1/3 (<19º). Grass/low vegetation ground cover <10 centimeters high. Sensors located at least 100 meters from artificial heating or reflecting surfaces, such as buildings, concrete surfaces, and parking lots. Far from large bodies of water, except if it is representative of the area, and then located at least 100 meters away. No shading when the sun elevation >3 degrees.

Class 2 – Same as Class 1 with the following differences. Surrounding Vegetation <25 centimeters. Artificial heating sources within 30m. No shading for a sun elevation >5º.

Class 3 (error 1ºC) – Same as Class 2, except no artificial heating sources within 10 meters.

Class 4 (error ≥ 2ºC) – Artificial heating sources <10 meters.

Class 5 (error ≥ 5ºC) – Temperature sensor located next to/above an artificial heating source, such a building, roof top, parking lot, or concrete surface.

[106] Paper: “Analysis of the Impacts of Station Exposure on the U.S. Historical Climatology: Network Temperatures and Temperature Trends.” By Souleymane Fall and others. Journal of Geophysical Research, July 30, 2011. <pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com>

Page 12:

The opposite-signed differences in maximum and minimum 571 temperature trends at poorly-sited stations compared to well-sited stations were of similar magnitude, so that average temperature trends were statistically indistinguishable across classes. For 30-year trends based on time-of observation corrections, differences across classes were less than 0.05ºC/decade, and the difference between the trend estimated using the full network and the trend estimated using the best-sited stations was less than 0.01ºC/decade.

Page 13: “We recommend that this type of comprehensive siting study be extended to the global historical climate network [GHCN] temperature data….”

NOTES:

• See page 5 for pictures of surface temperature monitoring stations along with their siting classification.
• Just Facts contacted John R. Christy, Ph.D., director of the Earth System Science Center and distinguished professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. As of May 5, 2023, Dr. Christy was unaware of any studies on a global scale assessing the temperature monitoring stations outside the continental U.S.

[107] Calculated with data from:

a) Dataset: “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Polar-Orbiting Satellites, Microwave Sounding Unit, Lower Troposphere (T2LT), Version 6.0.” National Space Science and Technology Center at the University of Alabama Huntsville and National Climatic Data Center of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <www.nsstc.uah.edu>

b) Dataset: “Land-Ocean: Global Means.” NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <data.giss.nasa.gov>

c) Webpage: “GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v4).” NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <data.giss.nasa.gov>

“The GISS [Goddard Institute for Space Studies] Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v4) is an estimate of global surface temperature change. … The following are … temperature anomalies, i.e. deviations from the corresponding 1951–1980 means.”

d) Dataset: “HadCRUT5 Analysis: Global.” Hadley Center, Climatic Research Unit. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <www.metoffice.gov.uk>

e) Paper: “An Updated Assessment of Near-Surface Temperature Change From 1850: The HadCRUT5 Data Set.” By C.P. Morice and others. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, December 15, 2020. <agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 1: “HadCRUT5 presents monthly average near-surface temperature anomalies, relative to the 1961–1990 period, on a regular 5° latitude by 5° longitude grid from 1850 to 2018. HadCRUT5 is a combination of sea-surface temperature (SST) measurements over the ocean from ships and buoys and near-surface air temperature measurements from weather stations over the land surface.”

f) Dataset: “HadCRUT.5.0.1.0.” Met Office Hadley Centre. Last updated January 19, 2022. <www.metoffice.gov.uk>

“HadCRUT.5.0.1.0 updates the data from HadCRUT.5.0.0.0 to include the most recent monthly data as new observational data becomes available.”

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[108] Article: “Scientific Survey Shows Voters Widely Accept Misinformation Spread by the Media.” By James D. Agresti. Just Facts, January 2, 2020. <www.justfacts.com>

While most polls measure public opinion, this unique one measures voters’ knowledge of major issues facing the nation—such as education, taxes, healthcare, national debt, pollution, government spending, Social Security, global warming, energy, and hunger. …

The survey was conducted by Triton Polling & Research, an academic research firm that serves scholars, corporations, and political campaigns. The responses were obtained through live telephone surveys of 700 likely voters across the United States during December 2–11, 2019. This sample size is large enough to accurately represent the U.S. population. Likely voters are people who say they vote “every time there is an opportunity” or in “most” elections.

The margin of sampling error for the total pool of respondents is ±4% with at least 95% confidence. The margins of error for the subsets are 6% for Democrat voters, 6% for Trump voters, 5% for males, 5% for females, 12% for 18 to 34 year olds, 5% for 35 to 64 year olds, and 6% for 65+ year olds.

The survey results presented in this article are slightly weighted to match the ages and genders of likely voters. The political parties and geographic locations of the survey respondents almost precisely match the population of likely voters. Thus, there is no need for weighting based upon these variables.

NOTE: For facts about what constitutes a scientific survey and the factors that impact their accuracy, visit Just Facts’ research on Deconstructing Polls & Surveys.

[109] Dataset: “Just Facts 2019 U.S. Nationwide Survey.” Just Facts, December 2019. <www.justfacts.com>

Page 3:

Q12. Would you say the earth has become measurably warmer since the 1980s?

Yes [=] 62.4%

No [=] 34.3%

Unsure [=] 3.0%

[110] For facts about how surveys work and why some are accurate while others are not, click here.

[111] Paper: “Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations.” By Michael E. Mann and Raymond S. Bradley. Geophysical Research Letters, March 15, 1999. Pages 759–762. <agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 1:

Annual climate estimates, however, require proxies such as tree rings, varved sediments, ice cores, and corals (combined with any available instrumental or historical records), which record seasonal/annual variations. Studies based on such “multiproxy” data networks … have allowed the 20th century climate to be placed in a longer-term perspective, thus allowing for improved estimates of the influence of climate forcings … and validation of the low-frequency behavior exhibited by climate models….

[112] Paper: “Corrections to the Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemispheric Average Temperature Series.” By Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. Energy & Environment, November 6, 2003. Pages 751–771. <climateaudit.files.wordpress.com>

Page 753: “The term ‘proxy’ denotes some physical data or measurement that can potentially serve as an indirect record of local temperature conditions, including tree ring widths and densities, coral dO18, dC13 and calcification rates, ice core dO18, melt percentages and so forth.”

[113] Webpage: “Organization.” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Accessed October 22, 2019 at <archive.ipcc.ch>

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts. In the same year, the UN General Assembly endorsed the action by WMO and UNEP in jointly establishing the IPCC.

The IPCC reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of climate change. It does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters.

[114] Webpage: “History.” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Accessed October 22, 2019 at <archive.ipcc.ch>

Oslo, 10 December 2007

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] was created in 1988. It was set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to prepare, based on available scientific information, assessments on all aspects of climate change and its impacts, with a view of formulating realistic response strategies. The initial task for the IPCC as outlined in UN General Assembly Resolution 43/53 of 6 December 1988 was to prepare a comprehensive review and recommendations with respect to the state of knowledge of the science of climate change; the social and economic impact of climate change, and possible response strategies and elements for inclusion in a possible future international convention on climate. Today the IPCC’s role is as defined in Principles Governing IPCC Work, “… to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they may need to deal objectively with scientific, technical and socio-economic factors relevant to the application of particular policies.”

[115] Report: “ ‘Consensus’ Exposed: The CRU Controversy.” United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Minority Staff, February 2010. <bit.ly>

Page 7:

The IPCC’s [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s] work serves as the key basis for climate policy decisions made by governments throughout the world, including here in the United States. A notable example is the EPA’s [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s] endangerment finding for greenhouse gases from mobile sources under the Clean Air Act, issued in December.¹⁵ As the finding states, “it is EPA’s view that the scientific assessments” of the IPCC “represent the best reference materials for determining the general state of knowledge on the scientific and technical issues before the agency in making an endangerment decision.”¹⁶ In the finding’s Technical Support Document (TSD), in the section on “attribution,” EPA claims that climate changes are the result of anthropogenic [man-made] greenhouse gas emissions and not natural forces. In this section, EPA has 67 citations, 47 of which refer to the IPCC.¹⁷

[116] Report: “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. <www.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 2: “Observed Climate Variability and Change.” By C.K. Folland and others. Pages 99–182.

Page 130:

To determine whether 20th century warming is unusual, it is essential to place it in the context of longer-term climate variability. Owing to the sparseness of instrumental climate records prior to the 20th century (especially prior to the mid-19th century), estimates of global climate variability during past centuries must often rely upon indirect “proxy’’ indicators—natural or human documentary archives that record past climate variations, but must be calibrated against instrumental data for a meaningful climate interpretation (Bradley, 1999, gives a review).

[117] Report: “Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Chapter 7: “Observed Climate Variations and Change.” By C.K. Folland and others. Pages 199–238. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 202 displays the graph. Pages 201–203 state:

Even greater difficulties arise with the proxy data (natural records of climate sensitive phenomena, mainly pollen remains, lake varves and ocean sediments, insect and animal remains, glacier termini) which must be used to deduce the characteristics of climate before the modern instrumental period began. So special attention is given to a critical discussion of the quality of the data on climate change and variability and our confidence in making deductions from these data. Note that we have not made much use of several kinds of proxy data, for example tree ring data, that can provide information on climate change over the last millennium. We recognize that these data have an increasing potential however their indications are not yet sufficiently easy to assess nor sufficiently integrated with indications from other data to be used in this report. …

The late tenth to early thirteenth centuries (about AD 950–1250) appear to have been exceptionally warm in western Europe, Iceland and Greenland (Alexandre 1987, Lamb, 1988). This period is known as the Medieval Climatic Optimum. China was, however, cold at this time (mainly in winter) but South Japan was warm (Yoshino, 1978). This period of widespread warmth is notable in that there is no evidence that it was accompanied by an increase of greenhouse gases.

Cooler episodes have been associated with glacial advances in alpine regions of the world, such neo-glacial episodes have been increasingly common in the last few thousand years. Of particular interest is the most recent cold event, the Little Ice Age, which resulted in extensive glacial advances in almost all alpine regions of the world between 150 and 450 years ago (Grove, 1988) so that glaciers were more extensive 100–200 years ago than now nearly everywhere (Figure 7 2). Although not a period of continuously cold climate, the Little Ice Age was probably the coolest and most globally extensive cool period since the Younger Dryas. In a few regions, alpine glaciers advanced down-valley even further than during the last glaciation (for example, Miller, 1976). Some have argued that an increase in explosive volcanism was responsible for the coolness (for example Hammer, 1977, Porter, 1986), others claim a connection between glacier advances and reductions in solar activity (Wigley and Kelly, 1989) such as the Maunder and Sporer solar activity minima (Eddy, 1976), but see also Pittock (1983) At present, there is no agreed explanation for these recurrent cooler episodes. The Little Ice Age came to an end only in the nineteenth century. Thus some of the global warming since 1850 could be a recovery from the Little Ice Age rather than a direct result of human activities. So it is important to recognise that natural variations of climate are appreciable and will modulate any future changes induced by man.

[118] Report: “Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 1996. <www.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 3: “Observed Climate Variability and Change.” By N. Nicholls and others. Pages 133–192.

Pages 138–139: “Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures in recent decades appear to be the warmest since at least about 1400 AD, based on a variety of proxy records. The warming over the past century began during one of the colder periods of the last 600 years. Data prior to 1400 are too sparse to allow the reliable estimation of global mean temperature.”

Page 175:

Figure 3.20: Decadal summer temperature index for the Northern Hemisphere, from Bradley and Jones (1993), up to 1970–1979. The record is based on the average of 16 proxy summer temperature records from North America, Europe and east Asia. The smooth one was created using an approximately 50-year Gaussian filter. Recent instrumental data for Northern Hemisphere summer temperature anomalies (over land and ocean) are also plotted (thick line). The instrumental record is probably biased high in the mid-19th century, because of exposures differing from current techniques (for example, Parker, 1994b).

NOTE: The following two curves show the proxy temperature reconstruction from the first and second IPCC reports for the overlapping timeframe (1400–2000):

[119] Report: “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. <www.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 2: “Observed Climate Variability and Change.” By C.K. Folland and others. Pages 99–182.

The graph is displayed in Section 2.3.2.1 (“Palaeoclimate proxy indicators”) with this caption: “Figure 2.20: Millennial Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature reconstruction (blue) and instrumental data (red) from AD 1000 to 1999, adapted from Mann and others (1999). Smoother version of NH series (black), linear trend from AD 1000 to 1850 (purple-dashed) and two standard error limits (grey shaded) are shown.”

Section 2.3.1 (Background):

Since the SAR [IPCC Second Assessment Report], a number of studies based on considerably expanded databases of palaeoclimate information have allowed more decisive conclusions about the spatial and temporal patterns of climate change in past centuries. A number of important advances have been in key areas such as ice core palaeoclimatology (for example, White and others, 1998a), dendroclimatology (for example, Cook, 1995; Briffa and others, 1998b), and geothermal palaeo-temperature estimation (for example, Pollack and others, 1998). Moreover, the latest studies based on global networks of “multi-proxy” data have proved particularly useful for describing global or hemispheric patterns of climate variability in past centuries (for example, Bradley and Jones, 1993; Hughes and Diaz, 1994; Mann and others, 1995; Fisher, 1997; Overpeck and others, 1997; Mann and others, 1998, 1999).

Section 2.3.3 (Was there a “Little Ice Age” and a “Medieval Warm Period”?):

[T]he conventional terms of “Little Ice Age” and “Medieval Warm Period” appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries. With the more widespread proxy data and multi-proxy reconstructions of temperature change now available, the spatial and temporal character of these putative climate epochs can be reassessed.

[120]

[121] Report: “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. <www.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 2: “Observed Climate Variability and Change.” By C.K. Folland and others. Pages 99–182.

Page 134: “Figure 2.20: Millennial Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature reconstruction (blue) and instrumental data (red) from AD 1000 to 1999, adapted from Mann and others (1999). Smoother version of NH series (black), linear trend from AD 1000 to 1850 (purple-dashed) and two standard error limits (grey shaded) are shown.”

[122] Synthesis report: “Climate Change 2001: Summary for Policy Makers.” Edited by Robert T. Watson and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 34:

Figure SPM-10b: Variations of the Earth’s surface temperature: years 1000 to 2100. From year 1000 to year 1860 variations in average surface temperature of the Northern Hemisphere are shown (corresponding data from the Southern Hemisphere not available) reconstructed from proxy data (tree rings, corals, ice cores, and historical records). The line shows the 50-year average, the grey region the 95% confidence limit in the annual data.

[123] Paper: “Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations.” By Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, and Malcolm K. Hughes. Geophysical Research Letters, March 15, 1999. <www.meteo.psu.edu>

Pages 1–2:

Recently, Mann and others [1998—henceforth “MBH98”] reconstructed yearly global surface temperature patterns back in time through the calibration of multiproxy networks against the modern temperature record. … We here apply the methodology detailed by MBH98 to the sparser proxy data network available prior to AD 1400, to critically revisit this issue, extending NH [Northern Hemisphere] reconstructions as far back as is currently feasible.

[124] Paper: “Global-Scale Temperature Patterns and Climate Forcing Over the Past Six Centuries.” By Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, and Malcolm K. Hughes. Nature, April 23, 1998. Pages 779–787. <www.geo.umass.edu>

[125] Report: “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. <www.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 2: “Observed Climate Variability and Change.” By C.K. Folland and others. Pages 99–182.

Page 134.

[126] Synthesis report: “Climate Change 2001: Summary for Policy Makers.” Edited by Robert T. Watson and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 34.

[127] Report: “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. “Summary for Policymakers.” Based on a draft prepared by Daniel L. Albritton and others. <www.ipcc.ch>

Pages 3 and 29.

[128] Paper: “Corrections to the Mann et. al. (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemispheric Average Temperature Series.” By Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. Energy & Environment, November 6, 2003. Pages 751–771. <climateaudit.files.wordpress.com>

Page 751:

The data set of proxies of past climate used in Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998, “MBH98” hereafter) … contains collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculation of principal components and other quality control defects. … The particular “hockey stick” shape derived in the MBH98 proxy construction … is primarily an artefact of poor data handling, obsolete data and incorrect calculation of principal components.

[129] Paper: “Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes Reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperatures: Examination of Criticisms Based on the Nature and Processing of Proxy Climate Evidence.” By Eugene R. Wahl and Caspar M. Ammann. Climatic Change, November 2007. Pages 33–69. <link.springer.com>

Page 33: “Altogether new reconstructions over 1400–1980 are developed in both the indirect and direct analyses, which demonstrate that the Mann and others reconstruction is robust against the proxy-based criticisms addressed.”

[130] “Response of Dr. Edward Wegman to Questions Posed by the Honorable Mr. Bart Stupak in Connection with Testimony to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.” October 1, 2006. <www.justfacts.com>

“The MBH98 [Mann, Bradley and Hughes, 1998] methodology puts undue emphasis on those proxies that do exhibit the hockey-stick shape and this is the fundamental flaw. Indeed, it is not clear that the hockey-stick shape is even a temperature signal because all the confounding variables have not been removed.”

[131] Letter to Joe Barton (Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce) and Ed Whitfield (Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations). By Michael E. Mann. July 15, 2005. <www.realclimate.org>

“This letter responds to your letter of June 23, 2005, which seeks information on issues relating to my research on the historical record of temperatures and climate change. Your letter lays out a number of ‘concerns’ about the research my colleagues and I have conducted about global warming.”

[132] See the section of this research on ClimateGate.

[133] Webpage: “American Tradition Institute v. University of Virginia (Dr. Michael Mann).” American Tradition Institute, May 16, 2011.

On May 16, 2011, American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center and Virginia Delegate Robert Marshall asked a Prince William County judge, under the Commonwealth’s Freedom of Information Act, to expedite the release of documents withheld by the University of Virginia that pertain to the work of its former environmental sciences assistant professor Dr. Michael Mann. …

The emails and other documents ATI [American Tradition Institute] seeks relate to claims made by Dr. Mann to obtain, and claim payment under, certain taxpayer-funded grants. Mann, currently at Pennsylvania State University, worked at the UVA’s [University of Virginia’s] Department of Environmental Sciences when he produced what was hailed at the time as the “smoking gun” affirming the theory of catastrophic man-made global warming, and the policy agenda demanded by its proponents. After a persistent cloud of controversy—much of which was affirmed by the “ClimateGate” leak of 2009—this notorious “Hockey Stick” graph disappeared from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports, the perch that launched it.

[134] Article: “Ruling Alters Climate-Papers Fight.” By Paige Winfield Cunningham. Washington Times, May 25, 2011. <www.washingtontimes.com>

“Mr. Marshall, Prince William Republican, requested the documents through the Freedom of Information Act, while Mr. Cuccinelli subpoenaed them. Mr. Cuccinelli said an order issued Tuesday in Prince William County Circuit Court that grants Mr. Marshall’s request could affect his own appeal to the state Supreme Court to reverse a previous ruling in favor of the university.”

[135] Paper: “A Statistical Analysis of Multiple Temperature Proxies: Are Reconstructions of Surface Temperatures Over the Last 1000 Years Reliable?” By Blakeley B. McShane and Abraham J. Wyner. Annals of Applied Statistics, April 20, 2011. <arxiv.org>

Pages 3–4:

Fig. 1. … based on the work by Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1999). This figure has sometimes been referred to as the “hockey stick.” Source: IPCC (2001). …

It is not necessary to know very much about the underlying methods to see that graphs such as Figure 1 are problematic as descriptive devices. … the blue curve closely matches the red curve during the period 1902 AD to 1980 AD because this period has served as the training data and therefore the blue curve is calibrated to the red during it (note also the red curve is plotted from 1902 AD to 1998 AD). This sets up the erroneous visual expectation that the reconstructions are more accurate than they really are.

Page 7: “[F]or the remainder of the paper, we work entirely with the data from Mann and others (2008).”

Pages 36–37:

Still, it seems there is simply not enough signal in the proxies to detect either the high levels of or the sharp run-up in temperature seen in the 1990s. This is disturbing: if a model cannot predict the occurrence of a sharp run-up in an out-of-sample block which is contiguous with the in-sample training set, then it seems highly unlikely that it has power to detect such levels or run-ups in the more distant past.

Page 39: “Our backcasting methods, which track quite closely the methods applied most recently in Mann (2008) to the same data, are unable to catch the sharp run up in temperatures recorded in the 1990s, even in-sample.”

Page 40: “It is not clear that the proxies currently used to predict temperature are even predictive of it at the scale of several decades let alone over many centuries.”

[136] Paper: “Hockey Sticks, Principal Components, and Spurious Significance.” By Stephen Mcintyre and Ross Mckitrick. Geophysical Research Letters, February 12, 2005. <citeseerx.ist.psu.edu>

Pages 1–2:

The “hockey stick” shaped temperature reconstruction of Mann and others (1998, 1999) has been widely applied. However it has not been previously noted in print that, prior to their principal components (PCs) analysis on tree ring networks, they carried out an unusual data transformation which strongly affects the resulting PCs. Their method, when tested on persistent red noise, nearly always produces a hockey stick shaped first principal component (PC1) and overstates the first eigenvalue. …

[The computer] code … contains an unusual data transformation prior to PC calculation that has never been reported in print. … Since PC algorithms choose weights that maximize variance, the method reallocates variance so that hockey stick shaped series get overweighted. …

In effect, the MBH98 [Mann, Bradley, Hughes, 1998] data transformation results in the PC algorithm mining the data for hockey stick patterns. In a network of persistent red noise, there will be some series that randomly “trend” up or down during the ending sub-segment of the series (as well as other subsegments). … these spurious “trends” in a closing segment are sufficient for the MBH98 method, when applied to a network of red noise, to yield hockey stick PC1s, even though the underlying data generating process has no trend component.

Page 3: “The most heavily weighted site in the MBH98 PC1, Sheep Mountain, is a bristlecone pine site with the most pronounced hockey stick shape (1.6 s) in the network; it receives over 390 times the weight of the least weighted site, Mayberry Slough, whose hockey stick index is near 0.”

[137] “Response of Dr. Edward Wegman to Questions Posed by the Honorable Mr. Bart Stupak in Connection with Testimony to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.” October 1, 2006. <www.justfacts.com>

In order to set the context for my responses, I would like to make a few observations. I have been a professional statistician for some 38 years. I have served as editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association and served as coordinating editor, associate editor, member of the editorial board and a number of other editorial roles for many journals during this time period. I am currently on the Board of Directors of the American Statistical Association as the publications representative and will become the Chair of their Publications Committee as of 1 January, 2007. …

To reiterate our testimony, the decentering process as used in MBH98 [Mann, Bradley Hughes, 1998] and MBH99 selectively prefers to emphasize the hockey stick shape. This is because the decentering increases the apparent variance of hockey sticks and principal component methods attempt to find components with the largest explainable variance. If the variance is artificially increased by decentering, then the principal component methods will “data mine” for those shapes. In other words, the hockey stick shape must be in the data to start with or the CFR [climate field reconstruction] methodology would not pick it up. What we have shown both analytically and graphically in Figure 4.6 is that using the CFR methodology, just one signal when decentered will overwhelm 69 independent noise series. The point is that if all 70 proxies contained the same temperature signal, then it wouldn’t matter which method one used. But this is very far from the case. Most proxies do not contain the hockey-stick signal. The MBH98 methodology puts undue emphasis on those proxies that do exhibit the hockey-stick shape and this is the fundamental flaw. Indeed, it is not clear that the hockey-stick shape is even a temperature signal because all the confounding variables have not been removed.

[138] See the two footnotes above for vital context in understanding the next three footnotes.

[139] Book: Making Sense of Data II: A Practical Guide to Data Visualization, Advanced Data Mining Methods, and Applications. By Glenn J. Myatt and Wayne P. Johnson. Wiley, 2009.

Page 127:

Principal component analysis produces the same number of components as variables. However, each principal component accounts for a different amount of variation in the data set. In fact, only a small number of principal components usually account for the majority of variation in the data. The first principal component accounts for the most variation in the data. The second principal component accounts for the second highest amount of variation in the data, and so on.

[140] Book: Principal Components Analysis. By George H. Dunteman. SAGE Publications, 1989.

Page 10:

Principal components analysis searches for a few uncorrelated linear combinations of the original variables that capture most of the information in the original variables. … The linear composites (principal components) are ordered with respect to their variation so that the first few account for most of the variation present in the original variables, or equivalently, the first few principal components together have, overall, the highest possible squared multiple correlations with each of the original variables.

Geometrically, the first principal component is the line of closest fit the n observations in the p dimensional variable space.

[141] “Response of Dr. Edward Wegman to Questions Posed by the Honorable Mr. Bart Stupak in Connection with Testimony to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.” October 1, 2006. <www.justfacts.com>

Pages 10–14:

The Wahl and Ammann paper [defending the hockey stick graph and cited in the note below†] came to our attention relatively late in our deliberations, but was considered by us. Some immediate thoughts we had on Wahl and Ammann was that Dr. Mann lists himself as a Ph.D. coadvisor to Dr. Ammann on his resume. As I testified in the second hearing, the work of Dr. Ammann can hardly be thought to be an unbiased independent report. It would have been more convincing had this paper been written by a totally independent authority, but alas this is not the case. The Wahl and Ammann paper is largely an attempt to refute the criticisms of McIntyre and McKitrick (MM). …

It is our understanding that when using the same proxies as and the same methodology as MM, Wahl and Ammann essentially reproduce the MM curves. Thus, far from disproving the MM work, they reinforce the MM work. The debate then is over the proxies and the exact algorithms as it always has been. …

[Question 10b:] Do you agree or disagree with Wahl and Ammann’s finding that the time period used to center the data does not significantly affect the results reported in the MBH98 [Mann, Bradley and Hughes] paper? If you disagree, please state the basis for your disagreement.

Answer: We do disagree. The fundamental issue focuses on the North American Tree Ring proxy series, which Wahl and Ammann admit are problematic in carrying temperature data. In the original MBH [Mann, Bradley, Hughes; i.e., hockey stick] decentered series, the hockey-stick shape emerged in the PC1 [first principal component] series because of reasons we have articulated in both our report and our testimony. In the original MBH papers, it was argued that this PC1 proxy was sufficient. …

Without attempting to describe the technical detail, the bottom line is that, in the MBH original, the hockey stick emerged in PC1 from the bristlecone/foxtail pines. If one centers the data properly the hockey stick does not emerge until PC4. Thus, a substantial change in strategy is required in the MBH reconstruction in order to achieve the hockey stick, a strategy which was specifically eschewed in MBH [see note below †]. In Wahl and Ammann’s own words, the centering does significantly affect the results.

[Question 10c:] Dr. Gulledge included in his testimony a slide showing the graph of W A [Wahl and Ammann] emulation of the MBH and MBH-corrected for decentering and the Gaspe tree-ring series. Were you aware of their reanalysis of MBH99 prior to the time you finalized your report? Do you agree or disagree with their reanalysis of MBH99? If you disagree, please state the basis for your disagreement.

Answer: Yes, we were aware of the Wahl and Ammann simulation. We continue to disagree with the reanalysis for several reasons. Even granting the unbiasedness of the Wahl and Ammann study in favor of his advisor’s methodology and the fact that it is not a published refereed paper, the reconstructions mentioned by Dr. Gulledge, and illustrated in his testimony, fail to account for the effects of the bristlecone/foxtail pines. Wahl and Ammann reject this criticism of MM based on the fact that if one adds enough principal components back into the proxy, one obtains the hockey stick shape again. This is precisely the point of contention. It is a point we made in our testimony and that Wahl and Ammann make as well. A cardinal rule of statistical inference is that the method of analysis must be decided before looking at the data. The rules and strategy of analysis cannot be changed in order to obtain the desired result. Such a strategy carries no statistical integrity and cannot be used as a basis for drawing sound inferential conclusions.

NOTES:

• † Paper: “Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes Reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperatures: Examination of Criticisms Based on the Nature and Processing of Proxy Climate Evidence.” By Eugene R. Wahl and Caspar M. Ammann. Climatic Change, August 31, 2007. Pages 33–69. <link.springer.com>
  Page 33: “Altogether new reconstructions over 1400–1980 are developed in both the indirect and direct analyses, which demonstrate that the Mann and others reconstruction is robust against the proxy-based criticisms addressed. … When proxy PCs [principal components] are employed, neither the time period used to ‘center’ the data before PC calculation nor the way the PC calculations are performed significantly affects the results, as long as the full extent of the climate information actually in the proxy data is represented by the PC time series.”

• ‡ Paper: “Global-Scale Temperature Patterns and Climate Forcing Over the Past Six Centuries.” By Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, and Malcolm K. Hughes. Nature, April 23, 1998. Pages 779–787. <www.geo.umass.edu>
  Page 781: “We isolate the dominant patterns of the instrumental surface-temperature data through principal component analysis²⁵ (PCA). PCA provides a natural smoothing of the temperature field in terms of a small number of dominant patterns of variability or ‘empirical eigenvectors’. … The first eigenvector [i.e., principal component], associated with the significant global warming trend of the past century, describes much of the variability in the global (GLB [global] = 88%) and hemispheric (NH [Northern Hemisphere] = 73%) means. Subsequent eigenvectors, in contrast, describe much of the spatial variability relative to the large-scale means…. The second eigenvector is the dominant ENSO [El Niño/Southern Oscillation]-related component, describing 41% of the variance in the NINO3 index. This eigenvector shows a modest negative trend which, in the eastern tropical Pacific, describes a ‘La Niña’-like cooling trend,²⁶ which opposes warming in the same region associated with the global warming pattern of the first eigenvector. The third eigenvector is associated largely with interannual-to-decadal scale variability in the Atlantic basin and carries the well-known temperature signature of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)²⁷ and decadal tropical Atlantic dipole^2.8 The fourth eigenvector describes a primarily multidecadal timescale variation with ENSO-scale and tropical/subtropical Atlantic features, while the fifth eigenvector is dominated by multidecadal variability in the entire Atlantic basin and neighbouring regions that has been widely noted elsewhere.^29–34”

[142] Paper: “A Statistical Analysis of Multiple Temperature Proxies: Are Reconstructions of Surface Temperatures Over the Last 1000 Years Reliable?” By Blakeley B. McShane and Abraham J. Wyner. Annals of Applied Statistics, April 20, 2011. <arxiv.org>

Pages 4–5: “A careful viewer would know to temper such expectations by paying close attention to the reconstruction error bars given by the wide gray regions. However, even these are misleading because these are, in fact, pointwise confidence intervals and not confidence curves for the entire sample path of surface temperature. Furthermore, the gray regions themselves fail to account for model uncertainty.”

[143] Report: “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years.” By Gerald R. North and others. National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years. National Academies Press, 2006. <www.nap.edu>

Page 15:

FIGURE O-4 Multiproxy reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere surface temperature variations over the past millennium (blue), along with 50-year average (black), a measure of the statistical uncertainty associated with the reconstruction (grey), and instrumental surface temperature data for the last 150 years (red), based on the work by Mann and others (1999). This figure has sometimes been referred to as the “hockey stick.” SOURCE: IPCC (2001).

Page 16:

Despite the wide error bars, Figure O-4 was misinterpreted by some as indicating the existence of one ‘definitive’ reconstruction with small century-to-century variability prior to the mid-19th century. It should also be emphasized that the error bars in this particular figure, and others like it, do not reflect all of the uncertainties inherent in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions based on proxy data.

[144] See the section of this research on the “hide the decline“ emails.

[145] Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. <www.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. Pages 433–497. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 467: “Figure 6.10. Records of NH [Northern Hemisphere] temperature variation during the last 1.3 kyr [1,300 years]. … (b) Reconstructions using multiple climate proxy records, identified in Table 6.1, including three records … shown in the TAR [Third Assessment Report], and the HadCRUT2v instrumental temperature record in black.”

Page 469: “There are far from sufficient data to make any meaningful estimates of global medieval warmth (Figure 6.11). There are very few long records with high temporal resolution data from the oceans, the tropics or the SH [Southern Hemisphere].”

[146] Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. Pages 433–497. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 468:

Box 6.4, Figure 1. The heterogeneous nature of climate during the “Medieval Warm Period” is illustrated by the wide spread of values exhibited by the individual records that have been used to reconstruct NH mean temperature. These consist of individual, or small regional averages of, proxy records collated from those used by Mann and Jones (2003), Esper and others (2002) and Luckman and Wilson (2005), but exclude shorter series or those with no evidence of sensitivity to local temperature. These records have not been calibrated here, but each has been smoothed with a 20-year filter and scaled to have zero mean and unit standard deviation over the period 1001 to 1980.

[147] Report: “Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by Thomas Stocker and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013. <www.climatechange2013.org>

Chapter 5: “Information From Paleoclimate Archives.” By Valerie Masson-Delmotte and others. Pages 383–464. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 409:

Figure 5.7 Reconstructed (a) Northern Hemisphere and (b) Southern Hemisphere, and (c) global annual temperatures during the last 2000 years. Individual reconstructions (see Appendix 5.A.1 for further information about each one) are shown as indicated in the legends, grouped by colour according to their spatial representation (red: land-only all latitudes; orange: land-only extratropical latitudes; light blue: land and sea extra-tropical latitudes; dark blue: land and sea all latitudes) and instrumental temperatures shown in black (Hadley Centre/ Climatic Research Unit (CRU) gridded surface temperature-4 data set (HadCRUT4) land and sea, and CRU Gridded Dataset of Global Historical Near-Surface Air TEMperature Anomalies Over Land version 4 (CRUTEM4) land-only; Morice and others, 2012). All series represent anomalies (°C) from the 1881–1980 mean (horizontal dashed line) and have been smoothed with a filter that reduces variations on time scales less than about 50 years.

Page 411:

Reconstructing NH [Northern Hemisphere], SH [Southern Hemisphere] or global-mean temperature variations over the last 2000 years remains a challenge due to limitations of spatial sampling, uncertainties in individual proxy records and challenges associated with the statistical methods used to calibrate and integrate multi-proxy information (Hughes and Ammann, 2009; Jones and others, 2009; Frank and others, 2010a). …

The fundamental limitations for deriving past temperature variability at global/hemispheric scales are the relatively short instrumental period and the number, temporal and geographical distribution, reli­ability and climate signal of proxy records (Jones and others, 2009). The database of high-resolution proxies has been expanded since AR4 [i.e., the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report] (Mann and others, 2008; Wahl and others, 2010; Neukom and Gergis, 2011; Pages 2k Consortium, 2013), but data are still sparse in the tropics, SH and over the oceans (see new developments in Section 5.5). Integration of low-resolution records (for example, marine or some lake sediment cores and some speleothem records) with high-resolution tree-ring, ice core and coral records in global/hemispheric reconstructions is still challenging. Dating uncertainty, limited replication and the possibility of tempo­ral lags in low-resolution records (Jones and others, 2009) make regres­sion-based calibration particularly difficult (Christiansen and others, 2009) and can be potentially best addressed in the future with Bayesian hier­archical models (Tingley and others, 2012). The short instrumental period and the paucity of proxy data in specific regions may preclude obtain­ing accurate estimates of the covariance of temperature and proxy records (Juckes and others, 2007), impacting the selection and weighting of proxy records in global/hemispheric reconstructions (Bürger, 2007; Osborn and Briffa, 2007; Emile-Geay and others, 2013b) and resulting in regional errors in climate field reconstructions (Smerdon and others, 2011).

Page 412:

Limitations in proxy data and reconstruction methods suggest that published uncertainties [in the academic literature] will underestimate the full range of uncertain­ties of large-scale temperature reconstructions (see Section 5.3.5.1). While this has fostered debate about the extent to which proxy-based reconstructions provide useful climate information (for example, McShane and Wyner, 2011 and associated comments and rejoinder), it is well estab­lished that temperature and external forcing signals are detectable in proxy reconstructions (Sections 5.3.5.3 and 10.7.2).

[148] Report: “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by V. Masson-Delmotte and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2021. <report.ipcc.ch>

“Summary for Policymakers.” By Valérie Masson-Delmotte and others. Pages 3–31. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 6:

Human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2000 years

Changes in global surface temperature relative to 1850–1900

Panel (a) Changes in global surface temperature reconstructed from paleoclimate archives (solid grey line, years 1–2000) and from direct observations (solid black line, 1850–2020), both relative to 1850–1900 and decadally averaged. … The grey shading with white diagonal lines shows the very likely ranges for the temperature reconstructions.

[149] Report: “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by V. Masson-Delmotte and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2021. <report.ipcc.ch>

“Technical Summary.” By Paola A. Arias and others. Pages 35–144. <www.ipcc.ch>

Pages 61–62:

(a) Global surface temperatures are more likely than not unprecedented in the past 125,000 years

Figure 1 | Earth’s surface temperature history and future with key findings annotated within each panel. … The intent of this figure is to show global surface temperature observed changes from the Holocene to now, and projected changes. (a) Global surface temperature over the Holocene divided into three time scales: (i) 12,000 to 1000 years ago (10,000 BCE to 1000 CE) in 100-year time steps, (ii) 1000 to 1900 CE, 10-year smooth, and (iii) 1900 to 2020 CE (mean of four datasets in panel c). Bold lines show the median of the multi-method reconstruction, with 5% and 95% percentiles of the ensemble members (thin lines). Vertical bars are 5–95th percentile ranges of estimated global surface temperature for the Last Interglacial and mid-Holocene (medium confidence) (Section 2.3.1.1). All temperatures are relative to 1850–1900.

[150] Report: “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by V. Masson-Delmotte and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2021. <report.ipcc.ch>

[151] Report: “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by V. Masson-Delmotte and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2021. <report.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 2: “Changing State of the Climate System.” by Sergey K. Gulev and others. Pages 287–422. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 315:

For the LIG [Last Interglacial] … a major new compilation of marine proxy data (Turney and others, 2020) from 203 sites indicates that the average SST [sea surface temperatures] from 129–125 ka [thousand years ago] was 1.0°C ± 0.2°C (2 SD [standard deviation]) warmer than 1850–1900 (reported relative to 1981–2010 and adjusted here by 0.8°C). … In summary, GMST [global mean surface temperature] during the warmest millennia of the LIG (within the interval of around 129–125 ka) is estimated to have reached 0.5°C–1.5°C higher values than the 1850–1990 reference period (medium confidence).

New GMST reconstructions for the LGM [Last Glacial Maximum] fall near the middle of AR5’s very likely range, which was based on a combination of proxy reconstructions and model simulations. Two of these new reconstructions use marine proxies to reconstruct global SST that were scaled to GMST based on different assumptions. One indicates that GMST was 6.2 [4.5 to 8.1°C; 95% range] cooler than the late Holocene average (Snyder, 2016), and the other, 5.7°C ± 0.8°C (2 SD) cooler than the average of the first part of the Holocene (10–5 ka) (Friedrich and Timmermann, 2020). A third new estimate (Tierney and others, 2020) uses a much larger compilation of marine proxies along with a data-assimilation procedure, rather than scaling, to reconstruct a GMST of 6.1°C ± 0.4°C (2 SD) cooler than the late Holocene. Assuming that the 1850–1900 reference period was 0.2°C and 0.4°C cooler than the late and first part of the Holocene, respectively (Kaufman and others, 2020a), the midpoints of these three new GMST reconstructions average –5.8°C relative to 1850–1900. … A major new pollen-based data-assimilation reconstruction averages 6.9°C cooler over northern extratropical land (Cleator and others, 2020). …

In summary, GMST is estimated to have been 5°C–7°C lower during the LGM (around 23–19 ka [thousand years ago]) compared with 1850–1900 (medium confidence).

For the LDT [Last Deglacial Termination] … no new large-scale studies have been published since AR5 (Shakun and others, 2012) to further assess the rate of GMST change during this period of rapid global warming (estimated at 1°C–1.5°C per kyr). The reconstruction of Shakun and others (2012) was based primarily on SST records and therefore underrepresents the change in GMST during the LDT. Temperature over Greenland increased by about ten times that rate during the centuries of most rapid warming (Jansen and others, 2020).

2.3.1.1.2 Temperatures of the post-glacial period (past 7000 years) …

A multi-method reconstruction (Kaufman and others, 2020a) based on a quality-controlled, multi-proxy synthesis of paleo-temperature records from 470 terrestrial and 209 marine sites globally (Kaufman and others, 2020b) indicates that the median GMST of the warmest two-century-long interval was 0.7 [0.3 to 1.8] °C warmer than 1800–1900 (which averaged 0.03°C colder than 1850–1900; PAGES 2k Consortium, 2019), and was centred around 6.5 ka. This is similar to Marcott and others (2013), which is based on a smaller dataset (73 sites) and different procedures to estimate a maximum warmth of 0.8°C ± 0.3°C (2 SD) at around 7.0 ka, adjusted here by adding 0.3°C to account for differences in reference periods.

Page 317:

In addition, a major new global compilation of multiproxy, annually resolved paleo-temperature records for the CE (PAGES 2k Consortium, 2017) has been analysed using a variety of statistical methods for reconstructing temperature (PAGES 2k Consortium, 2019). The median of the multi-method GMST reconstruction from this synthesis … generally agrees with the AR5 assessment, while affording more robust estimates of the following major features of GMST during the CE: (i) an overall millennial-scale cooling trend of –0.18 [–0.28 to 0.00] °C kyr^–1 prior to 1850; (ii) a multi-centennial period of relatively low temperature beginning around the 15th century, with GMST averaging –0.03 [–0.30 to 0.06] °C between 1450 and 1850 relative to 1850–1900; (iii) the warmest multi-decadal period occurring most recently; and (iv) the rate of warming during the second half of the 20th century (from instrumental data) exceeding the 99th percentile of all 51-year trends over the past 2 kyr. Moreover, the new proxy data compilation shows that the warming of the 20th century was more spatially uniform than any other century-scale temperature change of the CE (medium confidence) (Neukom and others, 2019). A new independent temperature reconstruction extending back to 1580 is based on an expanded database of subsurface borehole temperature profiles, along with refined methods for inverse modelling (Cuesta-Valero and others, 2021).

Pages 376–377:

Development of new techniques and exploitation of existing and new proxy sources may help address challenges around the low temporal resolution of most paleoclimate proxy records, particularly prior to the Common Era, and ambiguities around converting paleoclimate proxy data into estimates of climate-relevant variables. Conversions rely upon important proxy-specific assumptions and biases can be large due to limited accounting of seasonality, non-climatic effects, or the influence of multiple climate variables. These challenges currently limit the ability to ascertain the historical unusualness of recent directly observed climate changes for many indicators. …

Contradictory lines of evidence exist between observations and models on the relationship between the rates of warming in GMST and GSAT, compounded by limitations in theoretical understanding. Improvements in air temperature datasets over the ocean and an improved understanding of the representation of the lowermost atmosphere over the ocean in models would reduce uncertainty in assessed changes in GSAT.

[152] Paper: “Seeing the Wood From the Trees.” By Keith R. Briffa and Timothy J. Osborn. Science, May 7, 1999. Pages 926–927. <www.meteo.psu.edu>

An uninformed reader would be forgiven for interpreting the similarity between the 1000-year temperature curve of Mann and others and a variety of others also representing either temperature change over the NH [Northern Hemisphere] as a whole or a large part of it (see the figure) as strong corroboration of their general validity, and, to some extent, this may well be so. Unfortunately, very few of the series are truly independent: There is a degree of common input to virtually every one, because there are still only a small number of long, well-dated, high-resolution proxy records.

[153] Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. Pages 433–497. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 471: “[T]hese new records are not entirely independent reconstructions inasmuch as there are some predictors (most often tree ring data and particularly in the early centuries) that are common between them, but in general, they represent some expansion in the length and geographical coverage of the previously available data (Figures 6.10 and 6.11).”

[154] Paper: “Extra-Tropical Northern Hemisphere Land Temperature Variability Over the Past 1000 Years.” By Edward R. Cook and others. Quaternary Science Reviews, November 2004. Pages 2063–2074. <www.sciencedirect.com>

Page 2071: “The re-calibrated mean RCS [Regional Curve Standardization method] tree-ring record probably represents the best reconstruction of past land-only, extra-tropical NH [Northern Hemisphere] annual temperatures that is practical to extract from it at this time.”

Page 2065: “Fig. 2. Map of the Esper et. al. (2002) tree-ring sites. Each solid red dot represents one of the 14 sites used. The six circled-sites are those that extend back to AD 831, the beginning of the ECS [Esper, Cook, and Schweingruber, 2002] record.”

NOTES:

• The point of the quotes above is that the study uses only six sites for the entire time period covered by the study. Furthermore, the above-referenced map shows that these sites are unequally distributed, with the only two sites in North America, located in the Southwestern U.S. Also, when such studies are cited in the media, timeframes are sometimes overstated and important caveats are often lost, such as the fact that the study strictly represents Northern-Hemisphere, land-only, extra-tropical temperatures. For instance, in a 2009 Associated Press article, Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution at Stanford, is quoted as stating: “To talk about global cooling at the end of the hottest decade the planet has experienced in many thousands of years is ridiculous.”† Yet, as the 2007 IPCC report explains, “There are far from sufficient data to make any meaningful estimates of global medieval warmth,”‡ and the medieval period ended only 500 years ago.§
• † Article: “Statisticians Reject Global Cooling.” By Seth Borenstein. Associated Press, October 26, 2009. <www.nbcnews.com>
• ‡ Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>. Page 469.
• § Article: “Middle Ages.” By Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis (Ph.D., Lecturer, Department of Art History, Indiana University, Bloomington). World Book Encyclopedia, 2007 Deluxe Edition. “Middle Ages is a term that describes the period in European history from about the 400’s through the 1400’s. The Middle Ages are also known as the medieval period, from the Latin words medium (middle) and aevum (age).”

[155] Paper: “A Statistical Analysis of Multiple Temperature Proxies: Are Reconstructions of Surface Temperatures Over the Last 1000 Years Reliable?” By Blakeley B. McShane and Abraham J. Wyner. Annals of Applied Statistics, April 20, 2011. <arxiv.org>

Page 1:

In this paper, we assess the reliability of such reconstructions and their statistical significance against various null models. We find that the proxies do not predict temperature significantly better than random series generated independently of temperature. Furthermore, various model specifications that perform similarly at predicting temperature produce extremely different historical backcasts. Finally, the proxies seem unable to forecast the high levels of and sharp run-up in temperature in the 1990s either in-sample or from contiguous holdout blocks, thus casting doubt on their ability to predict such phenomena if in fact they occurred several hundred years ago.

Pages 6–7: “[H]enceforth and for the remainder of the paper, we work entirely with the data from Mann and others (2008). … This is by far the most comprehensive publicly available database of temperatures and proxies collected to date.”

Page 18: “In other words, our model performs better when using highly autocorrelated noise rather than proxies to ‘predict’ temperature. The real proxies are less predictive than our ‘fake’ data.”

[156] Report: “Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 1996. <www.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 8: “Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes.” By B.D. Santer and others. Pages 407–444.

Page 419: “In order to produce a reconstruction, the raw data are generally subjected to some form of statistical manipulation, through which only part of the original climate information can be retrieved (typically less than 50%).”

[157] Report: “Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 1996. <www.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 8: “Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes.” By B.D. Santer and others. Pages 407–444.

Page 419: “Most temperature reconstructions, for example, are seasonally specific, rather than providing some integrated response to annual-mean conditions.”

[158] Paper: “Extra-Tropical Northern Hemisphere Land Temperature Variability Over the Past 1000 Years.” By Edward R. Cook and others. Quaternary Science Reviews, November 2004. Pages 2063–2074. <www.sciencedirect.com>

Page 2073: “We have argued that this reconstruction is best interpreted as an expression of land-only, extra-tropical NH (Northern Hemisphere) temperature variability. It probably best reflects warm-season-weighted temperatures, but an annual temperature model can also be used as a reasonable approximation.”

[159] Report: “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years.” By Gerald R. North and others. National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Committee on Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years. National Academies Press, 2006. <www.nap.edu>

Page 15:

FIGURE O-4 Multiproxy reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere surface temperature variations over the past millennium (blue), along with 50-year average (black), a measure of the statistical uncertainty associated with the reconstruction (grey), and instrumental surface temperature data for the last 150 years (red), based on the work by Mann and others (1999). This figure has sometimes been referred to as the “hockey stick.” Source: IPCC (2001).

Page 16:

Despite the wide error bars, Figure O-4 was misinterpreted by some as indicating the existence of one “definitive” reconstruction with small century-to-century variability prior to the mid-19th century. It should also be emphasized that the error bars in this particular figure, and others like it, do not reflect all of the uncertainties inherent in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions based on proxy data.

[160] “Ad Hoc Committee Report on the ‘Hockey Stick’ Global Climate Reconstruction.” By Edward J. Wegman and others. Prepared for the U.S. House of Representatives, Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, July 12, 2006. <bit.ly>

Page 2:

This committee, composed of Edward J. Wegman (George Mason University), David W. Scott (Rice University), and Yasmin H. Said (The Johns Hopkins University), has reviewed the work of both articles, as well as a network of journal articles that are related either by authors or subject matter, and has come to several conclusions and recommendations. This Ad Hoc Committee has worked pro bono, has received no compensation, and has no financial interest in the outcome of the report.

Page 6: “Especially when massive amounts of public monies and human lives are at stake, academic work should have a more intense level of scrutiny and review. It is especially the case that authors of policy-related documents like the IPCC report, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, should not be the same people as those that constructed the academic papers.”

[161] Rejoinder to comments on “A Statistical Analysis of Multiple Temperature Proxies: Are Reconstructions of Surface Temperatures Over the Last 1000 Years Reliable?” By Blakeley B. McShane and Abraham J. Wyner. Annals of Applied Statistics, May 12, 2011. <arxiv.org>

Page 3:

The process by which the complete set of 95/93 proxies is reduced to 59/57/55 is only suggestively described in an online supplement to Mann and others (2008).³ As statisticians we can only be skeptical of such improvisation, especially since the instrumental calibration period contains very few independent degrees of freedom. Consequently, the application of ad hoc methods to screen and exclude data increases model uncertainty in ways that are unmeasurable and uncorrectable. …

³ The Mann and others (2008) Supplementary Information contains the following note: “Tree-ring data included 926 tree-ring series extracted from the International Tree Ring Data Bank (ITRDB, version 5.03: <www.ncdc.noaa.gov>). All ITRDB tree-ring proxy series were required to pass a series of minimum standards to be included in the network: (i) series must cover at least the interval 1750 to 1970, (ii) correlation between individual cores for a given site must be 0.50 for this period, (iii) there must be at least eight samples during the screened period 1800–1960 and for every year used.”

[162] “What is the ‘Hockey Stick’ Debate About?” By Ross McKitrick. Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Study Group, Conference on “Managing Climate Change—Practicalities and Realities in a Post-Kyoto Future,” Canberra Australia, April 4, 2005. <www.geo.utexas.edu>

Page 14:

MBH99 [Mann Bradley, Hughes, 1999] acknowledged that the bristlecone series are flawed and need an adjustment to remove the CO2 fertilization effect. But they only applied the correction to the pre-1400 portion of the series. When we apply the correction to the full series length the hockey stick shape disappears regardless of how many PCs [principal components] are retained.

[163] Paper: “The M&M Critique of the MBH98 [Mann, Bradley and Hughes, 1998] Northern Hemisphere Climate Index: Update and Implications.” By Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. Energy & Environment, January 2005. Pages 69–100. <pdfs.semanticscholar.org>

Page 69: “In the case of the Gaspé cedars, MBH98 did not use archived data, but made an extrapolation, unique within the corpus of over 350 series, and misrepresented the start date of the series.”

[164] Article: “Climategate E-Mails Inquiry Under Way.” By Mark Kinver. BBC, February 11, 2010. <news.bbc.co.uk>

“As well as more than 1,000 e-mails, the hack took 3,000 documents. The overall size of data amounted to 160MB.”

[165] Report: “ ‘Consensus’ Exposed: The CRU Controversy.” United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Minority Staff, February 2010. <bit.ly>

Page 1: “The emails were written by the world’s top climate scientists, who work at the most prestigious and influential climate research institutions in the world.”

Page 6:

On October 12, 2009, email correspondence and other information belonging to the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were given to a reporter with the BBC network.⁴ In mid-November, additional emails and documents were posted on a number of file servers, making it available to the broader public.⁵ A message accompanying the material read, “We feel that climate science is too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.”⁶

[166] Climategate Document 1062592331.

From: Edward Cook† <drdendro@…>

To: Keith Briffa‡ <k.briffa@…>

Subject: An idea to pass by you

Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 08:32:11 -0400

Hi Keith,

After the meeting in Norway, where I presented the Esper stuff as described in the extended abstract I sent you, and hearing Bradley’s follow-up talk on how everybody but him has f**ked up in reconstructing past NH [Northern Hemisphere] temperatures over the past 1000 years (this is a bit of an overstatement on my part I must admit, but his air of papal infallibility is really quite nauseating at times), I have come up with an idea that I want you to be involved in. Consider the tentative title:

“Northern Hemisphere Temperatures Over The Past Millennium: Where Are The Greatest Uncertainties?”

Authors: Cook, Briffa, Esper, Osborn, D’Arrigo, Bradley(?), Jones (??), Mann (infinite?)

I am afraid the Mike [Mann] and Phil [Jones] are too personally invested in things now (i.e. the 2003 GRL [Geophysical Research Letters] paper that is probably the worst paper Phil has ever been involved in—Bradley hates it as well), but I am willing to offer to include them if they can contribute without just defending their past work—this is the key to having anyone involved. Be honest. Lay it all out on the table and don’t start by assuming that ANY reconstruction is better than any other.

Here are my ideas for the paper in a nutshell (please bear with me): …

7) Publish, retire, and don’t leave a forwarding address

Without trying to prejudice this work, but also because of what I almost think I know to be the case, the results of this study will show that we can probably say a fair bit about <100 year extra-tropical NH temperature variability (at least as far as we believe the proxy estimates), but honestly know f**k-all about what the >100 year variability was like with any certainty (i.e. we know with certainty that we know f**k-all).

Of course, none of what I have proposed has addressed the issue of seasonality of response. So what I am suggesting is strictly an empirical comparison of published 1000 year NH reconstructions because many of the same tree-ring proxies get used in both seasonal and annual recons anyway. So all I care about is how the recons differ and where they differ most in frequency and time without any direct consideration of their TRUE association with observed temperatures.

I think this is exactly the kind of study that needs to be done before the next IPCC assessment. But to give it credibility, it has to have a reasonably broad spectrum of authors to avoid looking like a biased attack paper, i.e. like Soon and Balliunas.

If you don’t want to do it, just say so and I will drop the whole idea like a hot potato. I honestly don’t want to do it without your participation. If you want to be the lead on it, I am fine with that too.

Cheers,

Ed

Dr. Edward R. Cook†

Doherty Senior Scholar and Director, Tree-Ring Laboratory

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Palisades, New York 10964

NOTES:

• † Cook is a contributing author of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report and is cited by name 15 times in this chapter. [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>. “Contributing Authors … E. Cook (USA) …”]
• ‡ At the time of the e-mail, Briffa was the Deputy Director of the CRU and a lead author of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. [Webpage: “Professor Keith Briffa.” Accessed June 29, 2011 at <bit.ly>. “I am currently Deputy Director of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K., where I have worked since 1977.”] [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>. “Lead Authors: Keith R. Briffa (UK) …”]

[167] Entry: “f**k all.” The Free Dictionary, 2011. <www.thefreedictionary.com>

“Noun 1. f**k all – little or nothing at all…”

[168] Climategate Document 938031546.

From: Keith Briffa† <k.briffa@…>

To: “Folland, Chris”‡ <ckfolland@…>, “Phil Jones”§ <p.jones@…>, “Michael E. Mann”# <mann@…>

Subject: RE: IPCC revisions

Date: Wed Sep 22 16:19:06 1999

Cc: tkarl@… [Tom Karl£]

I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards “apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data” but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. We don’t have a lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at least a significant number of tree proxies ) some unexpected changes in response that do not match the recent warming. I do not think it wise that this issue be ignored in the chapter.

For the record, I do believe that the proxy data do show unusually warm conditions in recent decades. I am not sure that this unusual warming is so clear in the summer responsive data. I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago. I do not believe that global mean annual temperatures have simply cooled progressively over thousands of years as Mike appears to and I contend that that there is strong evidence for major changes in climate over the Holocene (not Milankovich) that require explanation and that could represent part of the current or future background variability of our climate.

NOTES:

• † At the time of the e-mail, Briffa was the Deputy Director of the CRU and a lead author of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. [Webpage: “Professor Keith Briffa.” Accessed June 29, 2011 at <bit.ly>. “I am currently Deputy Director of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K., where I have worked since 1977.”] [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>. “Lead Authors: Keith R. Briffa (UK) …”]
• ‡ Folland is a coordinating lead author of the chapter about proxies in the 2001 IPCC report. [Report: “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. Chapter 2: “Observed Climate Variability and Change.” By C.K. Folland and others. Pages 99–182. <www.ipcc.ch>]
• § At the time of the e-mail, Jones was the Director of the CRU and is cited five times in the 2007 IPCC “spaghetti graph.” [Webpage: “Professor Philip Jones.” Accessed July 5, 2015 at <bit.ly>. “I am Research Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.”] [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>. Page 469: “Records of Northern Hemisphere temperature shown in Figure 6.10. … Jones and Moberg, 2003 … Jones and Moberg, 2003 … Jones and others, 2003 … Jones and others, 1998 … Mann and Jones, 2003”]
• # Mann is the lead author of the hockey stick graph. He is cited by name 29 times in the chapter about proxies in the 2001 IPCC report. [Paper: “Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations.” By Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, and Malcolm K. Hughes. Geophysical Research Letters, March 15, 1999. <www.meteo.psu.edu>] [Report: “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. Chapter 2: “Observed Climate Variability and Change.” By C.K. Folland and others. Pages 99–182. <www.ipcc.ch>]
• £ “Thomas Karl … Served as a Review Editor of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Coordinating Lead Author and Lead Author of the IPCC Third Assessment Report, and both Lead and Contributing Author on the IPCC Second Assessment Report.” [Report: “ ‘Consensus’ Exposed: The CRU Controversy.” United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Minority Staff, February 2010. <bit.ly>. Pages 35–36.]

[169] Climategate Document 1177890796.

From: Keith Briffa† <k.briffa@…>

To: mann@… [Michael E. Mann‡]

Subject: Re: quick note on TAR [the IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001)]

Date: Sun Apr 29 19:53:16 2007

Mike your words are a real boost to me at the moment. I found myself questioning the whole process and being often frustrated at the formulaic way things had to be done often wasting time and going down dead ends. I really thank you for taking the time to say these kind words. I tried hard to balance the needs of the science and the IPCC which were not always the same. I worried that you might think I gave the impression of not supporting you well enough while trying to report on the issues and uncertainties. Much had to be removed and I was particularly unhappy that I could not get the statement into the SPM regarding the AR4 [Fourth Assessment Report (2007)] reinforcement of the results and conclusions of the TAR. I tried my best but we were basically railroaded by Susan. I am happy to pass the mantle on to someone else next time. I feel I have basically produced nothing original or substantive of my own since this whole process started. I am at this moment having to work on the ENV submission to the forthcoming UK Research Assessment exercise again instead of actually doing some useful research ! Anyway thanks again Mike… . really appreciated when it comes from you very best wishes Keith

NOTES:

• † At the time of the e-mail, Briffa was the Deputy Director of the CRU and a lead author of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. [Webpage: “Professor Keith Briffa.” Accessed June 29, 2011 at <bit.ly>. “I am currently Deputy Director of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K., where I have worked since 1977.”] [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>. “Lead Authors: Keith R. Briffa (UK) …”]

• ‡ Mann is the lead author of the hockey stick graph. He is cited by name 29 times in the chapter about proxies in the 2001 IPCC report. [Paper: “Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations.” By Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, and Malcolm K. Hughes. Geophysical Research Letters, March 15, 1999. <www.meteo.psu.edu>] [Report: “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. Chapter 2: “Observed Climate Variability and Change.” By C.K. Folland and others. Pages 99–182. <www.ipcc.ch>]

[170] Climategate Document 1255553034.

… On Oct 14, 2009, at 5:57 PM, Tom Wigley† wrote:

Mike [Mann]‡,

The Figure you sent is very deceptive. As an example, historical runs with PCM [parallel climate model] look as though they match observations—but the match is a fluke. PCM has no indirect aerosol forcing and a low climate sensitivity—compensating errors. In my (perhaps too harsh) view, there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change].

NOTES:

• † “Dr. Thomas Wigley … Served as a Contributing Author of the IPCC Fourth and Third Assessment Reports as well as a Lead Author and Contributing Author of the IPCC Second Assessment Report.” [Report: “ ‘Consensus’ Exposed: The CRU Controversy.” United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Minority Staff, February 2010. <bit.ly>. Page 37.]
• ‡ Mann is the lead author of the hockey stick graph. He is cited by name 29 times in the chapter about proxies in the 2001 IPCC report. [Paper: “Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations.” By Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, and Malcolm K. Hughes. Geophysical Research Letters, March 15, 1999. <www.meteo.psu.edu>] [Report: “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. Chapter 2: “Observed Climate Variability and Change.” By C.K. Folland and others. Pages 99–182. <www.ipcc.ch>]

[171] Report: “ ‘Consensus’ Exposed: The CRU Controversy.” United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Minority Staff, February 2010. <bit.ly>

Pages 49–50:

At 04:30 PM 1/20/2005, Tom Wigley† wrote:

Mike [Michael E. Mann‡],

This is truly awful. GRL [Geophysical Research Letters] has gone downhill rapidly in recent years. I think the decline began before Saiers. I have had some unhelpful dealings with him recently with regard to a paper Sarah and I have on glaciers it was well received by the referees, and so is in the publication pipeline. However, I got the impression that Saiers was trying to keep it from being published.

Proving bad behavior here is very difficult. If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU [American Geophysical Union] channels to get him ousted. Even this would be difficult.

How different is the GRL paper from the Nature paper? Did the authors counter any of the criticisms? My experience with Douglass is that the identical (bar format changes) paper to one previously rejected was submitted to GRL.

Tom.

NOTES:

• † “Dr. Thomas Wigley … Served as a Contributing Author of the IPCC Fourth and Third Assessment Reports as well as a Lead Author and Contributing Author of the IPCC Second Assessment Report.” [Report: “ ‘Consensus’ Exposed: The CRU Controversy.” United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Minority Staff, February 2010. <bit.ly>. Page 37.]
• ‡ Mann is the lead author of the hockey stick graph. He is cited by name 29 times in the chapter about proxies in the 2001 IPCC report. [Paper: “Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations.” By Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, and Malcolm K. Hughes. Geophysical Research Letters, March 15, 1999. <www.meteo.psu.edu>] [Report: “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. Chapter 2: “Observed Climate Variability and Change.” By C.K. Folland and others. Pages 99–182. <www.ipcc.ch>]

[172] Report: “ ‘Consensus’ Exposed: The CRU Controversy.” United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Minority Staff, February 2010. <bit.ly>

Pages 11–12:

On May 29, 2008, Phil Jones† went beyond “hiding behind” data by encouraging colleagues to delete emails related to work produced for the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR 4). In an email to Dr. Michael Mann‡, Jones wrote:

“Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa§] re AR 4? Keith will do likewise…Can you also email Gene [Wahl#] and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar [Ammann#] to do likewise.”

In his reply, Mann wrote, “I’ll contact Gene about this ASAP.”

NOTES:

• † At the time of the e-mail, Jones was the Director of the CRU and is cited five times in the 2007 IPCC “spaghetti graph.” [Webpage: “Professor Philip Jones.” Accessed July 5, 2015 at <bit.ly>. “I am Research Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia in Norwich..”] [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>. Page 469: “Records of Northern Hemisphere temperature shown in Figure 6.10. … Jones and Moberg, 2003 … Jones and Moberg, 2003 … Jones and others, 2003 … Jones and others, 1998 … Mann and Jones, 2003”]
• ‡ Mann is the lead author of the hockey stick graph. He is cited by name 29 times in the chapter about proxies in the 2001 IPCC report. [Paper: “Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations.” By Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, and Malcolm K. Hughes. Geophysical Research Letters, March 15, 1999. <www.meteo.psu.edu>] [Report: “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. Chapter 2: “Observed Climate Variability and Change.” By C.K. Folland and others. Pages 99–182. <www.ipcc.ch>]
• § At the time of the e-mail, Briffa was the Deputy Director of the CRU and a lead author of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. [Webpage: “Professor Keith Briffa.” Accessed June 29, 2011 at <bit.ly>. “I am currently Deputy Director of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K., where I have worked since 1977.”] [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>. “Lead Authors: Keith R. Briffa (UK) …”]
• # Wahl and Ammann are the authors of a paper defending the hockey stick graph, which was cited twice in the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. They have coauthored papers with the authors of the hockey stick graph, and Ammann is a former student of the hockey stick graph authors. [Paper: “Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes Reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperatures: Examination of Criticisms Based on the Nature and Processing of Proxy Climate Evidence.” By Eugene R. Wahl and Caspar M. Ammann. Climatic Change, August 31, 2007. Pages 33–69. <link.springer.com>] [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>] [Blog: “11 Ammann Mentions in Mann’s Barton Letter.” By Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit, January 13, 2006. <climateaudit.org>. “Ammann’s c.v. … shows that he studied under Ray Bradley [hockey stick graph coauthor] for over 5 years at the University of Massachusetts…. His c.v. lists his experience as including associations with Bradley and Mann as follows: Experience: Research Assistant Univ. of Massachusetts, Department of Geosciences with Raymond S. Bradley: Modeling of climate impact of explosive Volcanism. Further interaction with: M.E. Mann (Paleoclimate Reconstruction) …. Previous coauthorships between Ammann and Mann and/or Bradley include the following [5 examples listed]….”]

[173] Article: “Climatic Research Unit Broke British Information Law.” By Antonio Regalado. ScienceInsider, January 28, 2010. <www.sciencemag.org>

[T]he e-mails included indications that CRU [Climate Research Unit] head Phil Jones had tried to illegally shield data and correspondence from disclosure requests made under the U.K.’s Freedom of Information laws. Jones stepped down from his position in December while investigations are underway.

Now Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office says CRU probably broke the law, but that Jones and other officials won’t be prosecuted because more than 6 months have passed since the alleged breach. “The legislation prevents us from taking any action but from looking at the emails it’s clear to us a breach has occurred,” an ICO spokesman told The Times. …

The Information Commissioner’s full statement follows:

Norfolk Police are investigating how private emails have become public. The Information Commissioner’s Office is assisting the police investigation with advice on data protection and freedom of information.

The emails which are now public reveal that Mr. Holland’s requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information.

[174] Report: “ ‘Consensus’ Exposed: The CRU Controversy.” United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Minority Staff, February 2010. <bit.ly>

Page 12:

In an exchange on March 19, 2009, [Phil] Jones† and Ben Santer‡ expressed outrage over the requirement imposed by the Royal Meteorological Society (RMS) that authors of its journals publicize their data. Santer wrote:

“If the RMS is going to require authors to make ALL data available—raw data PLUS results from all intermediate calculations—I will not submit any further papers to RMS journals.”

Jones responded with:

“I’ve complained about him to the RMS Chief Exec. If I don’t get him to back down, I won’t be sending any more papers to any RMS journals and I’ll be resigning from the RMS.”

NOTES:

• † At the time of the e-mail, Jones was the Director of the CRU and is cited five times in the 2007 IPCC “spaghetti graph.” [Webpage: “Professor Philip Jones.” Accessed July 5, 2015 at <bit.ly>. “I am Research Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.”] [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>. Page 469: “Records of Northern Hemisphere temperature shown in Figure 6.10. … Jones and Moberg, 2003 … Jones and Moberg, 2003 … Jones and others, 2003 … Jones and others, 1998 … Mann and Jones, 2003”]
• ‡ “Dr. Benjamin Santer … Served as a Contributing Author in both the IPCC Fourth and Third Assessment Reports as well as Convening Lead Author, Technical Summary and Contributing Author of the IPCC Second Assessment Report. [Report: “ ‘Consensus’ Exposed: The CRU Controversy.” United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Minority Staff, February 2010. <bit.ly>. Page 36.]

[175] Climategate Document 968705882.

From: GIORGI FILIPPO† <giorgi@…>

To: Chapter 10 LAs [Lead Authors]—Congbin Fu <fcb@…>, GIORGI FILIPPO <giorgi@…>, Bruce Hewitson <hewitson@…>, Mike Hulme <m.hulme@…>, Jens Christensen <jhc@…>, Linda Mearns <lindam@…>, Richard Jones <rgjones@…>, Hans von Storch <storch@…>, Peter Whetton <phw@…>

Subject: On “what to do?”

Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2000 16:58:02 +0200 (MET DST)

Dear All …

First let me say that in general, as my own opinion, I feel rather uncomfortable about using not only unpublished but also un reviewed material as the backbone of our conclusions (or any conclusions). I realize that chapter 9 is including SRES [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emission Scenarios] stuff, and thus we can and need to do that too, but the fact is that in doing so the rules of IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] have been softened to the point that in this way the IPCC is not any more an assessment of published science (which is its proclaimed goal) but production of results. The softened condition that the models themself have to be published does not even apply because the Japanese model for example is very different from the published one which gave results not even close to the actual outlier version (in the old dataset the CCC [Canadian Climate Centre (CCC) general circulation model] model was the outlier). Essentially, I feel that at this point there are very little rules and almost anything goes. I think this will set a dangerous precedent which might mine the IPCC credibility, and I am a bit uncomfortable that now nearly everybody seems to think that it is just ok to do this. Anyways, this is only my opinion for what it is worth.

NOTE: † Curriculum Vitae: Filippo Giorgi, October 2010. <www.ictp.it>. “Vice-Chair: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Working Group I, The Physical Science of Climate Change, April 2002–September 2008. … Lead Author of Chapter 6 (‘Climate Models – Projections of Future Climate’) of the IPCC Working Group I Second Assessment Report on the Science of Climate Change (1996). … Coordinating Lead Author of Chapter 10 (‘Regional Climate Information – Evaluation and Projections’) of the IPCC Working Group I Third Assessment Report on the Scientific Basis of Climate Change (2001). … Lead Author of Chapter 21 (‘Regional Context’) of the IPCC Working Group II Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) on the Impacts of Climate Change and Adaptation.”

[176] Climategate Document 1054736277.

From: “Michael E. Mann”† <mann@…>

To: Phil Jones‡ <p.jones@…>, rbradley@… [Raymond S. Bradley§], Tom Wigley# <wigley@…>, Tom Crowley£ <tcrowley@…>, Keith Briffa¥ <k.briffa@…>, trenbert@…, Michael Oppenheimer <omichael@…>, Jonathan Overpeck¢ <jto@…>

Subject: Re: Prospective Eos piece?

Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 10:17:57 -0400

Cc: mann@…, Scott Rutherford <srutherford@…>

…

Re Figures, what I had in mind were the following two figures:

1) A plot of various of the most reliable (in terms of strength of temperature signal and reliability of millennial-scale variability) regional proxy temperature reconstructions around the Northern Hemisphere that are available over the past 1–2 thousand years to convey the important point that warm and cold periods where highly regionally variable. Phil and Ray are probably in the best position to prepare this (?). Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH [Northern Hemisphere] records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back—I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back [Phil and I have one in review—not sure it is kosher to show that yet though—I’ve put in an inquiry to Judy Jacobs at AGU about this]. If we wanted to be fancy, we could do this the way certain plots were presented in one of the past IPCC reports (was it 1990?) in which a spatial map was provided in the center (this would show the locations of the proxies), with “rays” radiating out to the top, sides, and bottom attached to rectangles showing the different timeseries. Its a bit of work, but would be a great way to convey both the spatial and temporal information at the same time. …

NOTES:

• † Mann is the lead author of the hockey stick graph. He is cited by name 29 times in the chapter about proxies in the 2001 IPCC report. [Paper: “Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations.” By Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, and Malcolm K. Hughes. Geophysical Research Letters, March 15, 1999. <www.meteo.psu.edu>] [Report: “Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis.” Edited by J.T. Houghton and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001. Chapter 2: “Observed Climate Variability and Change.” By C.K. Folland and others. Pages 99–182. <www.ipcc.ch>]
• ‡ At the time of the e-mail, Jones was the Director of the CRU and is cited five times in the 2007 IPCC “spaghetti graph.” [Webpage: “Professor Philip Jones.” Accessed July 5, 2015 at <bit.ly>. “I am Research Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.”] [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>. Page 469: “Records of Northern Hemisphere temperature shown in Figure 6.10. … Jones and Moberg, 2003 … Jones and Moberg, 2003 … Jones and others, 2003 … Jones and others, 1998 … Mann and Jones, 2003”]
• § Bradley is a coauthor of the hockey stick graph. [Paper: “Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations.” By Michael E. Mann, Raymond S. Bradley, and Malcolm K. Hughes. Geophysical Research Letters, March 15, 1999. <www.meteo.psu.edu>]
• # “Dr. Thomas Wigley … Served as a Contributing Author of the IPCC Fourth and Third Assessment Reports as well as a Lead Author and Contributing Author of the IPCC Second Assessment Report.” [Report: “ ‘Consensus’ Exposed: The CRU Controversy.” United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Minority Staff, February 2010. <bit.ly>. Page 37.]
• £ Crowley was a reviewer of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. [Curriculum Vitae: Thomas John Crowley, January 2009. <www.ae-info.org>.

“Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) Chapter on Paleoclimatology (April, 2005)”]

• ¥ At the time of the e-mail, Briffa was the Deputy Director of the CRU and a lead author of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. [Webpage: “Professor Keith Briffa.” Accessed June 29, 2011 at <bit.ly>. “I am currently Deputy Director of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K., where I have worked since 1977.”] [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>. “Lead Authors: Keith R. Briffa (UK)”]
• ¢ Overpeck is a coordinating lead author of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. [Article: “Nobel Peace Prize Winner Has UA Connections.” University of Arizona News, October 12, 2007. <uanews.arizona.edu>. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was one of the winners of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, and a professor at The University of Arizona was one of only 33 lead authors on an IPCC assessment report released earlier this year. Jonathan Overpeck, director of the UA’s Institute for the Study of Planet Earth and professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences, was a coordinating lead author, Chapter 6 (Palaeoclimate), for the IPCC’s fourth assessment report.”]

[177] Climategate Document 1121869083.

… Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 15:38:31 +0100

To: Tom Crowley† <tcrowley@…>, Jonathan Overpeck‡ <jto@…>

From: Keith Briffa§ <k.briffa@…>

Subject: Re: thoughts and Figure for MWP box

Cc: Eystein Jansen# <eystein.jansen@…> …

Jonathan Overpeck‡ wrote: …

ANOTHER THING THAT IS A REAL ISSUE IS SHOWING SOME OF THE TREE-RING DATA FOR THE PERIOD AFTER 1950. BASED ON THE LITERATURE, WE KNOW THESE ARE BIASED – RIGHT? SO SHOULD WE SAY THAT’S THE REASON THEY ARE NOT SHOWN? OF COURSE, IF WE ONLY PLOT THE FIG FROM CA [abbreviation for “about”] 800 TO 1400 AD, IT WOULD DO WHAT WE WANT, FOCUS ON THE MWP [Medieval Warm Period] ONLY – THE TOPIC OF THE BOX – AND SHOW THAT THERE WERE NOT ANY PERIODS WHEN ALL THE RECORDS ALL SHOWED WARMTH – I.E., OF THE KIND WE’RE EXPERIENCING NOW. TWO CENTS WORTH

NOTES:

• † Crowley was a reviewer of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. [Curriculum Vitae: Thomas John Crowley, January 2009. <www.ae-info.org>.

“Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) Chapter on Paleoclimatology (April, 2005)”]

• ‡ Overpeck is a coordinating lead author of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. [Article: “Nobel Peace Prize Winner Has UA Connections.” University of Arizona News, October 12, 2007. <uanews.arizona.edu>. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was one of the winners of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, and a professor at The University of Arizona was one of only 33 lead authors on an IPCC assessment report released earlier this year. Jonathan Overpeck, director of the UA’s Institute for the Study of Planet Earth and professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences, was a coordinating lead author, Chapter 6 (Palaeoclimate), for the IPCC’s fourth assessment report.”]
• § At the time of the e-mail, Briffa was the Deputy Director of the CRU and a lead author of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. [Webpage: “Professor Keith Briffa.” Accessed June 29, 2011 at <bit.ly>. “I am currently Deputy Director of the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K., where I have worked since 1977.”] [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>. “Lead Authors: Keith R. Briffa (UK)”]
• # Jansen is a coordinating lead author of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. [Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. <www.ipcc.ch>]

[178] Climategate Document 1121869083. Click here for the full text of this document.

[179] Book: Health Promotion & Education Research Methods: Using the Five Chapter Thesis/Dissertation Model. By Randall R. Cottrell and James F. McKenzie. Jones and Bartlett, 2011.

Chapter 6: “Research Ethics.” Article: “Data Analyses.” Pages 112–113.

Page 113: “[T]here are several ways to avoid ethical situations associated with data analyses. … And fourth, always report all your findings, not just the ones that turned out the way you wanted them to turn out.”

[180] Climategate Document 942777075.

From: Phil Jones <p.jones@…>

To: ray bradley <rbradley@…>, mann@… [Michael E. Mann], mhughes@… [Malcolm Hughes]

Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement

Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000

Cc: k.briffa@… [Keith Briffa],t.osborn@… [Timothy J. Osborn]

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow. I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April–Sept for NH [Northern Hemisphere] land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61–90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers

Phil

[181] Climategate Document 988466058.

From: tom crowley† <tom@…>

Subject: Re: Low Frequency signals in Proxy temperatures:

Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 09:54:18 -0500 …

look at the instrumental record! there are huge differences between different regions—Alaska has warmed substantially while eastern North America cooled after the 1950s. locking onto local records, no matter how beautiful, can lead to serious errors. …

† NOTE: Crowley was a reviewer of the chapter about proxies in the 2007 IPCC report. [Curriculum Vitae: Thomas John Crowley, January 2009. <www.ae-info.org>. “Reviewer, Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) Chapter on Paleoclimatology (April, 2005)”]

[182] Calculated with data from:

a) Webpage: “Area Country Comparison to the World.” The World Factbook, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Accessed February 4, 2016 at <bit.ly>

b) Webpage: “State Area Measurements and Internal Point Coordinates.” U.S. Census Bureau. Accessed February 4, 2016 at <bit.ly>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[183] Paper: “An Assessment of ERA5 Reanalysis for Antarctic Near-Surface Air Temperature.” By Jiangping Zhu and others. Atmosphere, February 5, 2021. <www.mdpi.com>

Page 1:

The temperature trend from ERA5 is consistent with that from observations, in which a cooling trend dominates East Antarctica and West Antarctica, while a warming trend exists in the Antarctic Peninsula except during austral summer. Generally, ERA5 can effectively represent the temperature changes in Antarctica and its three subregions. Although ERA5 has bias, ERA5 can play an important role as a powerful tool to explore the climate change in Antarctica with sparse in situ observations.

Page 15: “Over the Antarctic Peninsula, trends of annual and seasonal temperature means in ERA reanalyses and observations are not significant.”

Page 16: “Table 4. Trends (°C/decade) … calculated for the 1979–2018 period. The bold font shows that the trend is significant at the 95% confidence interval. … Annual … ERA5 … East Antarctica [=] –0.70 ± 0.24 … West Antarctica [=] –0.42 ± 0.37 … Antarctic Peninsula [=] 0.18 ± 0.23”

[184] Article: “Virginians’ Attitudes About Global Warming Hinge on Local Weather.” By Brevy Cannon. University of Virginia, October 22, 2008. <news.virginia.edu>

The survey asked Virginians to identify the primary factor underlying their beliefs about climate change. Among the 75 percent of Virginians who do believe the earth is warming, one in four cited personal experience as the top reason. The next most popular reasons were melting glaciers and polar ice (21 percent), media coverage (14 percent) and changing weather patterns or strong storms (13 percent)—another type of personal experience of the weather.

Among the 13 percent of Virginians who do not believe the Earth is warming, the top reason given was also personal experience of the weather, suggesting that weather is in the eye of the beholder.

Tied for the top answer among Virginia’s global warming disbelievers was the notion that natural patterns explain any fluctuations in temperature.

[185] Calculated with data from:

a) Webpage: “Area Country Comparison to the World.” The World Factbook, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Accessed February 4, 2016 at <bit.ly>

b) Webpage: “State Area Measurements and Internal Point Coordinates.” U.S. Census Bureau. Accessed February 4, 2016 at <bit.ly>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[186] Paper: “Trends in the Sea Ice Cover Using Enhanced and Compatible AMSR-E, SSM/I, and SMMR Data.” By Josefino C. Comiso and Fumihiko Nishio. Journal of Geophysical Research, February 22, 2008. <onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Arguably, the most remarkable manifestation of change in the polar regions is the rapid decline in the Arctic perennial ice cover. Changes in the global sea ice cover, however, have been more modest, being only slightly negative in the Northern Hemisphere and even slightly positive in the Southern Hemisphere, the significance of which has not been adequately assessed because of unknown errors in the satellite historical data. … When updated to 2006, the trends in ice extent and area in the Arctic are now slightly more negative at −3.4 ± 0.2 and −4.0 ± 0.2% per decade, respectively, while the corresponding trends in the Antarctic remains slight but positive at 0.9 ± 0.2 and 1.7 ± 0.3% per decade.

[187] Press release: “Satellites Show Overall Increases in Antarctic Sea Ice Cover.” NASA, August 23, 2002. <www.sciencedaily.com>

While recent studies have shown that on the whole Arctic sea ice has decreased since the late 1970s, satellite records of sea ice around Antarctica reveal an overall increase in the southern hemisphere ice over the same period. Continued decreases or increases could have substantial impacts on polar climates, because sea ice spreads over a vast area, reflects solar radiation away from the Earth’s surface, and insulates the oceans from the atmosphere.

[188] Article: “Scientists Report Severe Retreat of Arctic Ice.” By Andrew C. Revkin. New York Times, September 21, 2007. <www.nytimes.com>

NOTE: Credit for bring this story to our attention belongs to James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal. [“Turning the World Upside-Down.” September 21, 2007. <www.opinionjournal.com>]

[189] Paper: “Conflicting Signals of Climatic Change in the Upper Indus Basin.” By H. J. Fowler and D. R. Archer. Journal of Climate, September 2006. Pages 4276–4293. <journals.ametsoc.org>

Page 4276:

Temperature data for seven instrumental records in the Karakoram and Hindu Kush Mountains of the Upper Indus Basin (UIB) have been analyzed for seasonal and annual trends over the period 1961–2000 and compared with neighboring mountain regions and the Indian subcontinent. …

… The observed downward trend in summer temperature and runoff is consistent with the observed thickening and expansion of Karakoram glaciers, in contrast to widespread decay and retreat in the eastern Himalayas. This suggests that the western Himalayas are showing a different response to global warming than other parts of the globe.

[190] Paper: “Antarctic Atmospheric Temperature Trend Patterns From Satellite Observations.” By Celeste M. Johanson and Qiang Fu. Geophysical Research Letters, June 19, 2007. <www.atmos.washington.edu>

Page 1:

We show good agreement between satellite-inferred temperature trends and radiosonde observations. It is illustrated that the Antarctic troposphere has cooled in the summer and fall seasons since 1979, in agreement with Thompson and Solomon (2002). It is shown that significant tropospheric warming prevails during Antarctic winters and springs, but we also find significant winter cooling over half of East Antarctica.

[191] Webpage: “James J. McCarthy, Ph.D.” Harvard Medical School, Center for Health and the Global Environment. Accessed July 7, 2011 at <bit.ly>

James J. McCarthy is Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography and from 1982 until 2002 he was the Director of Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ). …

For the past two decades McCarthy has worked as an author, reviewer, and as a co-chair with the Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). For the Third IPCC Assessment, he headed Working Group II, which had responsibilities for assessing impacts of and vulnerabilities to global climate change. He was also one of the lead authors on the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, and a Vice-Chair of the 2007 Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment.

[192] Article: “Ages-Old Icecap at North Pole Is Now Liquid, Scientists Find.” By John Noble Wilford. New York Times, August 19, 2000. <www.nytimes.com>

The North Pole is melting.

The thick ice that has for ages covered the Arctic Ocean at the pole has turned to water, recent visitors there reported yesterday. At least for the time being, an ice-free patch of ocean about a mile wide has opened at the very top of the world, something that has presumably never before been seen by humans and is more evidence that global warming may be real and already affecting climate.

The last time scientists can be certain the pole was awash in water was more than 50 million years ago. …

Dr. McCarthy was a lecturer on a tourist cruise in the Arctic aboard a Russian icebreaker earlier this month.

[193] Article: “Extraordinary Sight Greets North Pole Visitors: Water.” Associated Press, August 20, 2000. <community.seattletimes.nwsource.com>

“For the first time in 50 million years, visitors to the North Pole can see something extraordinary: water.”

[194] Article: “First Ice-Free North Pole in 50m Years.” By Anthony Browne. U.K. Guardian, August 20, 2000. <www.guardian.co.uk>

[195] Article: “Experts Are Poles Apart Over Ice Cap.” By Nick Nuttall. London Times, August 21, 2000. <www.thetimes.co.uk>

“Dr. Peter Wadhams, director of the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge, said yesterday: ‘Claims that the North Pole is now ice-free for the first time in 50 million years is complete rubbish, absolute nonsense…. What is happening is of concern but it is gradual, not sudden or stupendous.’ ”

[196] Webpage: “Professor Peter Wadhams.” University of Cambridge, Polar Ocean Physics Group. Accessed January 13, 2018 at <www.damtp.cam.ac.uk>

From 1970–74 he studied for a PhD at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge on “The Effect of a Sea Ice Cover on Ocean Surface Waves.” His PhD was awarded in April 1974. From 1974–75 Peter was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Ocean Sciences, Victoria, B.C., Canada, working on sea ice structure and dynamics in the Beaufort Sea and the impact of oil spills.

In January 1976 Peter returned to Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, initially as a Senior Research Associate (Principal Investigator for Office of Naval Research). From 1981 he was an Assistant Director of Research; from 1987 to 1992 Peter was Director of the Institute. From 1992 he was a Reader in Polar Studies, and in 1994 was awarded a ScD (Cantab) for published work. Since 2001 he has been Professor of Ocean Physics.

[197] Article: “Ages-Old Icecap at North Pole Is Now Liquid, Scientists Find.” By John Noble Wilford. New York Times, August 19, 2000. <www.nytimes.com>

Correction: August 29, 2000, Tuesday A front-page article on Aug. 19 and a brief report on Aug. 20 in The Week in Review about the sighting of open water at the North Pole misstated the normal conditions of the sea ice there. A clear spot has probably opened at the pole before, scientists say, because about 10 percent of the Arctic Ocean is clear of ice in a typical summer. The reports also referred incompletely to the link between the open water and global warming. The lack of ice at the pole is not necessarily related to global warming. New studies of the polar icepack and its recent changes are reported today in Science Times on Page F3.

[198] Article: “Open Water at Pole Is Not Surprising, Experts Say.” By John Noble Wilford. New York Times, August 29, 2000. <www.nytimes.com>

The ice covering most of the Arctic Ocean, several researchers said, is broken by long, wide cracks and gaping holes in many places, sometimes even at the pole, and especially in the summer. During a typical summer, 90 percent of the high Arctic region is covered with ice, with the remaining 10 percent open water. This has probably been true for centuries, they said, the result of motions in the ice sheet caused by winds and the force of ocean currents, as well as warming temperatures.

[199] Webpage: “Dr. Waldo K. Lyon.” Arctic Submarine Laboratory, U.S. Navy. Accessed November 30, 2017 at <bit.ly>

Dr. Waldo Lyon was the founder and chief research scientist of the Arctic Submarine Laboratory. …

Dr. Lyon’s career included scores of under-ice cruises to gain scientific knowledge essential to Arctic submarine operations.

[200] Webpage: “Dr. Waldo K. Lyon, Ph.D. – Biography.” U.S. Navy Submarine Force Pacific. Accessed January 13, 2018 at <bit.ly>

In August 1958, he [Lyon] served as senior scientist for “Operation Sunshine II”, which culminated in the USS Nautilus becoming the first ship in history ever to reach the geographic North Pole. Although he would receive his second Distinguished Civilian Service Award for the Nautilus mission, Dr. Lyon was far from content to rest on his laurels. Just seven months later, he led the USS Skate back to the Arctic, where she became the first ship ever to actually break through the ice and surface at the North Pole.

[201] Article: “The Submarine and the Arctic Ocean.” By Dr. Waldo Lyon. New Scientist, June 13, 1963. Pages 587–591. <books.google.com>

Page 587:

In further demonstration of the capability of submarines to sail the Arctic Ocean, USS Skate departed from New London, Connecticut, and the USS Seadragon from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; they proceeded to the Arctic Ocean, and 31 July, 1962, met at a prearranged point and time underneath the sea ice (Figure 1).

The Arctic Ocean has become the private sea of the submariner who is free to move in any direction and any speed under the ice covering the sea. The sea ice form a protective canopy over the submarine. Under the influence of wind and ocean current, the sea-ice canopy is a dynamic, temporal system of floating ice masses, having all possible sizes, shapes and thicknesses. …

During the summer, open water spaces appear everywhere between the floes and form holes in the ice canopy through which the submarine can readily reach the surface. …

Figure 1. The US nuclear submarines Skate and Seadragon at the North Pole, 2 August, 1962.

[202] Webpage: “Submarine Photo Archive.” NavSource Naval History. Accessed October 30, 2017 at <navsource.org>

Seadragon (SSN-584), foreground, and her sister Skate (SSN-578) during a rendezvous at the North Pole in August 1962. …

Seadragon (SSN-584), foreground, preparing to moor at the North Pole after a historic rendezvous with Skate (SSN-578) under the Polar ice pack. Photograph released 28 August 1962. Master caption: The submarines surface together at the North Pole, carried out anti-submarine warfare exercises, collected scientific information, and established a new year-round submarine channel by exploring a passage through the Kennedy and Robeson Channels (between Greenland and Ellesmere Island). The two submarines proceeded to the historic meeting, operation independently, carrying out tests of electronic equipment and gathering scientific information. All tests of sonar capabilities, ASW capabilities, and underwater communications, proved highly successful. Skate departed on 2 July and Seadragon departed on 12 July.

NOTE: Credit for bringing this picture to our attention belongs to Anthony Watts: “Ice at the North Pole in 1958 and 1959 – Not So Thick.” Watts Up With That, April 26, 2009. <wattsupwiththat.com>

[203] Article: “The Submarine and the Arctic Ocean.” By Dr. Waldo Lyon. New Scientist, June 13, 1963. Pages 587–591. <books.google.com>

Page 587:

In further demonstration of the capability of submarines to sail the Arctic Ocean, USS Skate departed from New London, Connecticut, and the USS Seadragon from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; they proceeded to the Arctic Ocean, and 31 July, 1962, met at a prearranged point and time underneath the sea ice (Figure 1).

The Arctic Ocean has become the private sea of the submariner who is free to move in any direction and any speed under the ice covering the sea. The sea ice form a protective canopy over the submarine. Under the influence of wind and ocean current, the sea-ice canopy is a dynamic, temporal system of floating ice masses, having all possible sizes, shapes and thicknesses. …

During the summer, open water spaces appear everywhere between the floes and form holes in the ice canopy through which the submarine can readily reach the surface. …

Figure 1. The US nuclear submarines Skate and Seadragon at the North Pole, 2 August, 1962.

[204] Webpage: “About Forecast the Facts.” Accessed July 24, 2013 at <forecastthefacts.org>

“Forecast the Facts is a grassroots human rights organization dedicated to ensuring that Americans hear the truth about climate change: that temperatures are increasing, human activity is largely responsible, and that our world is already experiencing the effects. We do this by empowering everyday people to speak out in the face of misinformation and hold accountable those who mislead the public.”

[205] Webpage: “That Day When the North Pole Became a Lake.” Forecast the Facts. Accessed January 13, 2018 at <act.forecastthefacts.org>

[206] Webpage: “That Day When the North Pole Became a Lake.” Forecast the Facts. Accessed January 13, 2018 at <act.forecastthefacts.org>

Climate change is happening now. In July 2013, a lake formed at the North Pole due to unprecedented melting Arctic sea ice. And yet, at least 127 members of Congress still refuse to accept fossil fuels are warming the planet. And the mainstream media regularly spreads doubt and misinformation about climate science.

If we want climate action, we have to fight climate denial. Luckily, we have social media to spread the word. And the facts are on our side.

Click below to spread the message, CLIMATE CHANGED, by sharing the graphic below on Facebook, Twitter, and email.

[207] Facebook post: “Global Warming Pollution Has Melted the Arctic and Created a Lake on Top of the North Pole Sea Ice.” Forecast the Facts. Accessed January 13, 2018 at <www.facebook.com>

“Global warming pollution has melted the Arctic and created a lake on top of the North Pole sea ice. Let’s make sure this is one for the history books….”

[208] Image: “NPEO2013 Camera#2 Tues Jul 23 01:22:40.” University of Washington, North Pole Environmental Observatory. <psc.apl.washington.edu>

[209] Email from Just Facts to the University of Washington Polar Science Center, July 26, 2013.

“If you’d be so kind, can you provide the locations of NPEO 2013 Webcam 1 and Webcam 2? Approximately how far are each of these webcams from the precise North Pole?”

[210] Email from the University of Washington Polar Science Center to Just Facts, July 26, 2013.

“The two webcams are only about 150 meters apart, and are co-located with PAWS Buoy 819920, which today is reporting its position as 84.773°N 5.415°W. One degree of latitude is 60 nautical miles, so it is 314 nautical miles or 361 statute miles or 582 kilometers from the North Geographic Pole.”

[211] Webpage: “Recent Atmospheric Data Near the North Pole, International Arctic Buoy Programme (IABP).” University of Washington, Applied Physics Lab, Polar Science Center. Accessed July 27, 2013 at <psc.apl.washington.edu>

NPEO 2013 Polar Area Weather Station (PAWS) Buoy, Buoy ID 819920

[212] Webpage: “Latitude/Longitude Distance Calculator.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Hurricane Center. Accessed July 27, 2013 at <www.nhc.noaa.gov>

NOTE: Per this calculator, the distance between the North Pole (90.0°N, 0.0ºW) and the buoy at the time the photo was taken (84.838°N, 5.845°W) is 310 nautical miles or 356 surface miles.

[213] Article: “Under-Ice Crossing of the Arctic Basin: U.S.S. Nautilus and U.S.S. Skate, 1958.” Polar Record, January 1959. Page 340. <doi.org>

The nuclear powered submarine U.S.S. Nautilus, Commander W. R. Anderson, made the first successful under-ice crossing of the Arctic basin between 1 and 5 August 1958. …

A slightly smaller nuclear-powered submarine, U.S.S. Skate, Commander J. Calvert, made a similar crossing, and surfaced in an opening in the ice about 40 miles from the North Pole at 01.47 hr. 0.N.T. on 12 August. Skate also visited the two United States I.G.Y. drifting stations before leaving the Arctic.

[214] Article: “Skate’s Breakthrough at the Pole: Skipper Tells of Daring, Momentous Surfacings in Arctic Winter Ice Pack.” By Commander James Calvert, U.S. Navy. Life, May 4, 1959. Pages 130–145. <books.google.com>

Page 131:

Our winter expedition would be far different than the one we took last August. In August the Arctic was at its bland best, with continual daylight and air temperatures above freezing. Cruising under the 10-foot-thick pack, we repeatedly found open water where we could surface. Now in March the Artic was at its worst. There would be only partial daylight, the temperature would average 30º below zero, and the welcoming leads (elongated cracks in the ice) and polynyas (larger, lakelike bodies of ice) would in all probability be sealed. But we hoped to prove conclusively that arctic submarine operations are possible at all times of the year. We were going back, and we intended to surface.

[215] Article: “North Pole Melting Leaves Small Lake At The Top Of The World (VIDEO).” By Nick Visser. Huffington Post, July 25, 2013. <www.huffingtonpost.com>

[216] Facebook post: “Now THIS Is a Wakeup Call!.” Huffington Post. Accessed July 25, 2013 at <www.facebook.com>

[217] Article: “North Pole: Lake Forms as Ice Melts at the Top of the World.” By Robin Farmer. Newsmax, July 25, 2013. <www.newsmax.com>

[218] Article: “The Scariest Lake in the World Sits at the North Pole.” By Lauren McCauley. Common Dreams, July 26, 2013. <bit.ly>

[219] Article: “North Pole Is Now a Lake.” New York Post, July 25, 2013. <www.nypost.com>

[220] Facebook post: “Global Warming Pollution Has Melted the Arctic and Created a Lake on Top of the North Pole Sea Ice.” Daily Kos. Accessed July 26, 2013 at <www.facebook.com>

“Thanks to Forecast the Facts for the image and the North Pole Observatory for the photo.”

[221] Article: “Melting Polar Ice Cap Created A Lake On Top Of The World.” Forbes, July 27, 2013. <www.forbes.com>

[222] Article: “The North Pole Is Currently a Lake. No Biggie.” Relevant, July 26, 2013. <www.relevantmagazine.com>

Look, there was a lot of news this past week. Anthony Weiner. The Royal baby. Important stuff like that. So, you can hardly be blamed for not noticing that, at some point, temperatures at the North Pole got balmy enough to create a lake where there should be a brick of frozen ice. Experts said that the ice is melting 61% faster than at any recorded point in the past three decades—and, to be clear, this isn’t ocean water seeping up through cracks in the lake. That’s bonafide ice melt you’re looking at.

[223] Article: “The North Pole Has Melted. Again.” By Eric Levenson. Yahoo News/The Atlantic wire, July 24, 2013. <news.yahoo.com>

In what has now become an annual occurrence, the North Pole’s ice has melted, turning the Earth’s most northern point into a lake. Call it Lake North Pole. To be clear, the water surrounding the pole is not seawater seeping up from the ocean but melted icewater resting on top of a thinning layer of ice below the surface. “It’s a shallow lake. It’s a cold lake. But it is, actually, a lake,” writes William Wolfe-Wylie of Canada.com.

That lake started to form on July 13 during a month of abnormally warm weather—temperatures were 1–3 degrees Celsius higher than average in the Arctic Ocean this month—and has come to stretch a significant distance, though not out of the camera’s range.

[224] Article: “Startling Images Show Melting North Pole Turning Into a Lake.” By Lesley Ciarula Taylor. Toronto Star, July 26, 2013. <www.thestar.com>

[225] Article: “Under-Ice Crossing of the Arctic Basin: U.S.S. Nautilus and U.S.S. Skate, 1958.” Polar Record, January 1959. Page 340. <doi.org>

The nuclear powered submarine U.S.S. Nautilus, Commander W. R. Anderson, made the first successful under-ice crossing of the Arctic basin between 1 and 5 August 1958. …

A slightly smaller nuclear-powered submarine, U.S.S. Skate, Commander J. Calvert, made a similar crossing, and surfaced in an opening in the ice about 40 miles from the North Pole at 01.47 hr. 0.N.T. on 12 August. Skate also visited the two United States I.G.Y. drifting stations before leaving the Arctic.

[226] Article: “Skate’s Breakthrough at the Pole: Skipper Tells of Daring, Momentous Surfacings in Arctic Winter Ice Pack.” By Commander James Calvert, U.S. Navy. Life, May 4, 1959. Pages 130–145. <books.google.com>

Page 131:

Our winter expedition would be far different than the one we took last August. In August the Arctic was at its bland best, with continual daylight and air temperatures above freezing. Cruising under the 10-foot-thick pack, we repeatedly found open water where we could surface. Now in March the Artic was at its worst. There would be only partial daylight, the temperature would average 30º below zero, and the welcoming leads (elongated cracks in the ice) and polynyas (larger, lakelike bodies of ice) would in all probability be sealed. But we hoped to prove conclusively that arctic submarine operations are possible at all times of the year. We were going back, and we intended to surface.

[227] Webpage: “Contact Us.” Accessed July 29, 2013 at <www.forecastthefacts.org>

Our institute has published an article that debunks your claim that a “lake” has formed at the North Pole “due to unprecedented melting Arctic sea ice.” …

I am writing to make you aware of this in case you would like to respond and/or issue a correction: <www.justfactsdaily.com>

[228] Webpage: “That Day When the North Pole Became a Lake.” Forecast the Facts. Accessed May 8, 2023 at <act.forecastthefacts.org>

Climate change is happening now. In July 2013, a lake formed at the North Pole due to unprecedented melting Arctic sea ice. And yet, at least 127 members of Congress still refuse to accept fossil fuels are warming the planet. And the mainstream media regularly spreads doubt and misinformation about climate science.

If we want climate action, we have to fight climate denial. Luckily, we have social media to spread the word. And the facts are on our side.

Click below to spread the message, CLIMATE CHANGED, by sharing the graphic below on Facebook, Twitter, and email.

NOTE: When this page was first published, there was no hyperlink on the words “unprecedented melting Arctic sea ice.” This hyperlink actually leads to a page that proves this melting is not “unprecedented.” In fact, it states that “melting sea ice at or near the North Pole is actually not a rare event.” Still, the page downplays this reality by stating that it has happened “several times in the past.” [Article: “The Lake at the North Pole, How Bad Is It?” By Andrew Freedman. Climate Central, July 26th, 2013. <www.climatecentral.org>]

[229] Facebook post: “Global Warming Pollution Has Melted the Arctic and Created a Lake on Top of the North Pole Sea Ice.” Forecast the Facts. Accessed May 8, 2023 at <www.facebook.com>

“Global warming pollution has melted the Arctic and created a lake on top of the North Pole sea ice. Let’s make sure this is one for the history books.”

[230] Webpage: “Forecast the Facts.” Accessed January 21, 2016 at <forecastthefacts.org>

“Forecast the Facts is now ClimateTruth.org”

NOTE: In 2018, ClimateTruth.org became Oil Change U.S. [Webpage: “Welcome.” “ClimateTruth.org and ClimateTruth.org Action are now Oil Change U.S.!” Oil Change United States. Accessed October 22, 2019 at <oilchangeusa.org>]

[231] Webpage: “About ClimateTruth.org.” Accessed January 15, 2018 at <bit.ly>

Our Advisors

Dr. Naomi Oreskes is Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the earth and environmental sciences, with a particular interest in understanding scientific consensus and dissent.

Dr. Michael Mann is Distinguished Professor of Meteorology at Penn State University. His research involves the use of theoretical models and observational data to better understand Earth’s climate system.

John Cook is the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland. He is currently completing a PhD in cognitive psychology, researching how people think about climate change.

[232] Video: “Bill Nye on Tucker Carlson Tonight.” February 27, 2017. <www.youtube.com>

Time Marker 7:55: “You asked what the climate would be like if humans weren’t involved, is that right? … The climate would be like it was in 1750. The economics would be that you could not grow wine-worthy grapes in Britain, as you can today, because the climate is changing.”

[233] Book: Daily Life in the Middle Ages. By Paul B. Newman. McFarland & Company, 2019.

Page 20:

Regardless of the method used to crush the grapes, wine production flourished throughout much of medieval Europe. Along with the traditional wine growing areas of France, Spain, and Italy, the Rhine and other river valleys in modern day Germany, Switzerland, and Austria were all long established wine growing regions by the start of the Middle Ages thanks to the Romans who routinely brought viniculture into the areas they conquered. Surviving landscape evidence of cultivation and contemporary documentation show that grapes for wine were grown even as far north as England during the Middle Ages up through the long period of mild climate that lasted until approximately the end of the 14th century, when weather conditions generally deteriorated with lower temperatures and increased dampness crippling agriculture across northern Europe.

[234] Book: The Archaeology of Medieval England and Wales. By John Steane. Routledge, 2014.

Page 276:

Bede† states that there were vineyards “in some places” [in England], but it is probable that these remained few until the climate began to warm up in the eighth and ninth centuries. By 1100 to 1200 the climate was more like that of northern France today with summer temperatures generally about 1° C higher than now…. Domesday Book‡ records the existence of 55 vineyards of all sizes in England.

NOTES:

• † Webpage: “Historic Figures: The Venerable Bede (673 AD–735 AD).” BBC. Accessed August 5, 2020 at <www.bbc.co.uk>
• ‡ “The Doomsday Book was commissioned in December 1085 by William the Conqueror…. The first draft was completed in August 1085….” [Webpage: “The Doomsday Book Online.” Doomsday Book. Accessed August 5, 2020 at <www.domesdaybook.co.uk>]

[235] Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Chapter 6: “Palaeoclimate.” By Eystein Jansen and others. Pages 433–497. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 468:

With regard to Iceland and Greenland, Pettersson (1914) cited evidence for considerable areas of Iceland being cultivated in the 10th century. At the same time, Norse settlers colonised areas of Greenland, while a general absence of sea ice allowed regular voyages at latitudes far to the north of what was possible in the colder 14th century. Brooks (1922) described how, after some amelioration in the 15th and 16th centuries, conditions worsened considerably in the 17th century; in Iceland, previously cultivated land was covered by ice. Hence, at least for the area of the northern North Atlantic, a picture was already emerging of generally warmer conditions around the centuries leading up to the end of the first millennium, but framed largely by comparison with strong evidence of much cooler conditions in later centuries, particularly the 17th century.

Lamb (1965) seems to have been the first to coin the phrase “Medieval Warm Epoch” or “Little Optimum” to describe the totality of multiple strands of evidence principally drawn from western Europe, for a period of widespread and generally warmer temperatures which he put at between AD 1000 and 1200 (Lamb, 1982). It is important to note that Lamb also considered the warmest conditions to have occurred at different times in different areas: between 950 and 1200 in European Russia and Greenland, but somewhat later, between 1150 and 1300 (though with notable warmth also in the later 900s) in most of Europe (Lamb, 1977).

Much of the evidence used by Lamb was drawn from a very diverse mixture of sources such as historical information, evidence of treeline and vegetation changes, or records of the cultivation of cereals and vines. He also drew inferences from very preliminary analyses of some Greenland ice core data and European tree ring records. Much was not precisely dated, representing physical or biological systems that involve complex lags between forcing and response, as is the case for vegetation and glacier changes. Lamb’s analyses also predate any formal statistical calibration of much of the evidence he considered. He concluded that “High Medieval” temperatures were probably 1.0°C to 2.0°C above early 20th-century levels at various European locations (Lamb, 1977; Bradley and others, 2003a).

A later study, based on examination of more quantitative evidence, in which efforts were made to control for accurate dating and specific temperature response, concluded that it was not possible to say anything other than “… in some areas of the Globe, for some part of the year, relatively warm conditions may have prevailed” (Hughes and Diaz, 1994).

In medieval times, as now, climate was unlikely to have changed in the same direction, or by the same magnitude, everywhere (Box 6.4, Figure 1). At some times, some regions may have experienced even warmer conditions than those that prevailed throughout the 20th century (for example, see Bradley and others, 2003a).

[236] Article: “Cosmoclimatology: A New Theory Emerges.” By Henrik Svensmark. Astronomy & Geophysics, February, 2007. <onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 1.19:

By 2005 we had found a causal mechanism by which cosmic rays can facilitate the production of clouds (Svensmark and others 2007). The data revealed that electrons released in the air by cosmic rays act as catalysts. They significantly accelerate the formation of stable, ultra-small clusters of sulphuric acid and water molecules which are building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei.

Page 1.20:

Low-level clouds cover more than a quarter of the Earth and exert a strong cooling effect at the surface. (For clouds at higher altitudes there is a complicated trade-off between cooling and warming.) …

… As seen in figure 5, the various methods agree that there was a pronounced reduction in cosmic rays in the 20th century, such that the maximal fluxes towards the end of the century were similar to the minima seen around 1900. This was in keeping with the discovery that the Sun’s coronal magnetic field doubled in strength during the 20th century (Lockwood and others 1999).

Here is prima facie evidence for suspecting that much of the warming of the world during the 20th century was due to a reduction in cosmic rays and in low-cloud cover. But distinguishing between coincidence and causal action has always been a problem in climate science. The case for anthropogenic climate change during the 20th century rests primarily on the fact that concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases increased and so did global temperatures. Attempts to show that certain details in the climatic record confirm the greenhouse forcing (for example Mitchell and others 2001) have been less than conclusive. By contrast, the hypothesis that changes in cloudiness obedient to cosmic rays help to force climate change predicts a distinctive signal that is in fact very easily observed, as an exception that proves the rule.

[237] Paper: “Experimental Evidence for the Role of Ions in Particle Nucleation Under Atmospheric Conditions.” By Henrik Svensmark and others. Proceedings of the Royal Society A, October 3, 2006. Pages 385–396. <royalsocietypublishing.org>

Page 394:

The experiment indicates that ions play a role in nucleating new particles in the atmosphere and that the rate of production is sensitive to the ion density. … Marsh & Svensmark (2000) found that the correlation between cosmic ray ionization and clouds is mainly in low-level clouds and not as might have been expected, in high clouds where ionization variations are large.

This feature seems to be consistent with the present work. In the lower atmosphere, the limiting factor is the density of ions and, since the ion density (under conditions of low background aerosol) is proportional to … the sensitivity of ion density to variations in the production rate increases for decreasing values of…. In contrast, at higher altitudes in the atmosphere, the ion production rate can be 10 times larger than at the surface. In these regions, it has been suggested that the role of ions saturates and the nucleation process is no longer sensitive to changes in ionization (Yu & Turco 2001). A response limited to regions where low-level clouds form is perhaps not surprising, especially when considering that high clouds usually consist of ice-particles, which involve nucleation processes not covered by the present work.

[238] Report: “Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options.” By Henning Steinfeld and others. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2006. <www.fao.org>

Page xxi:

The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than transport.

The livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The largest share of this derives from land-use changes especially deforestation caused by expansion of pastures and arable land for feedcrops. Livestock are responsible for much larger shares of some gases with far higher potential to warm the atmosphere. The sector emits 37 percent of anthropogenic methane (with 23 times the global warming potential (GWP) of CO2) most of that from enteric fermentation by ruminants. It emits 65 percent of anthropogenic nitrous oxide (with 296 times the GWP of CO2), the great majority from manure. Livestock are also responsible for almost two-thirds (64 percent) of anthropogenic ammonia emissions, which contribute significantly to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems.

[239] Article: “Cow ‘Emissions’ More Damaging to Planet Than CO2 From Cars.” By Geoffrey Lean. U.K. Independent, December 11, 2006. <www.independent.co.uk>

“The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world’s 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.”

[240] Paper: “A New Dynamical Mechanism for Major Climate Shifts.” By Anastasios A. Tsonis and others. Geophysical Research Letters, July 12, 2007. <onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 1:

We construct a network of observed climate indices in the period 1900–2000 and investigate their collective behavior. The results indicate that this network synchronized several times in this period. … These shifts are associated with significant changes in global temperature trend…. First we construct a network from four major climate indices. … The indices represent the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and the North Pacific Oscillation (NPO)…. These indices represent regional but dominant modes of climate variability, with time scales ranging from months to decades. … Together these four modes capture the essence of climate variability in the northern hemisphere.

Page 4: “The above observational and modeling results suggest the following intrinsic mechanism of the climate system leading to major climate shifts. First, the major climate modes tend to synchronize at some coupling strength. When this synchronous state is followed by an increase in the coupling strength, the network’s synchronous state is destroyed and after that climate emerges in a new state.”

[241] Article: “Asia Pollution Blamed for Halt in Warming: Study.” By Gerard Wynn. Reuters, July 4, 2011. <bit.ly>

World temperatures did not rise from 1998 to 2008, while manmade emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuel grew by nearly a third, various data show. …

The researchers from Boston and Harvard Universities and Finland’s University of Turku said pollution, and specifically sulphur emissions, from coal-fueled growth in Asia was responsible for the cooling effect.

Sulphur allows water drops or aerosols to form, creating hazy clouds which reflect sunlight back into space.

[242] Paper: “Reconciling Anthropogenic Climate Change with Observed Temperature 1998–2008.” By Robert K. Kaufmann and others. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, July 5, 2011. <www.pnas.org>

Page 1:

Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008. …

Increasing emissions and concentrations of carbon dioxide receive considerable attention, but our analyses identify an important change in another pathway for anthropogenic climate change—a rapid rise in anthropogenic sulfur emissions driven by large increases in coal consumption in Asia in general, and China in particular.

Page 3:

The 1998–2008 hiatus is not the first period in the instrumental temperature record when the effects of anthropogenic changes in greenhouse gases and sulfur emissions on radiative forcing largely cancel. In-sample simulations indicate that temperature does not rise between the 1940’s and 1970’s because the cooling effects of sulfur emissions rise slightly faster than the warming effect of greenhouse gases.

[243] Article: “Storm Guru: Oceans, Not CO2, Cause Warming.” Associated Press, April 30, 2007. <www.nbcnews.com>

[N]oted hurricane forecaster William Gray said that global ocean currents, not human-produced carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming….

Gray … [is] a Colorado State University researcher best known for his annual forecasts of hurricanes along the U.S. Atlantic coast….

Gray said ocean circulation patterns are behind a decades-long warming cycle. He has argued previously that the strength of these patterns can affect how much cold water rises to the surface, which in turn affects how warm or cold the atmosphere is.

[244] Report: “Extended Range Forecast of Atlantic Seasonal Hurricane Activity and Landfall Strike Probability for 2011.” By Philip J. Klotzbach and William M. Gray. Colorado State University, Department of Atmospheric Science, April, 6, 2011. <tropical.colostate.edu>

Page 32:

The amount of North Atlantic water that sinks is proportional to the water’s density which is determined by its salinity content as well as its temperature. Salty water is denser than fresh water especially at water temperatures near freezing. There is a strong association between North Atlantic SSTA [Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly] and North Atlantic salinity (Figure 20). High salinity implies higher rates of North Atlantic deep water formation (or subsidence) and thus a stronger flow of upper level warm water from lower latitudes as replacement.

[245] Paper: “Surface Warming by the Solar Cycle as Revealed by the Composite Mean Difference Projection.” By Charles D. Camp and Ka Kit Tung. Geophysical Research Letters, July 18, 2007. <agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 1:

By projecting surface temperature data (1959–2004) onto the spatial structure obtained objectively from the composite mean difference between solar max and solar min years, we obtain a global warming signal of almost 0.2ºK [.36ºF] attributable to the 11-year solar cycle. …

Because of the variations of sunspots and faculae on the sun’s surface, the total solar irradiance (TSI), also called the solar constant, varies on a roughly 11-year cycle by about 0.07%, which has been measured by orbiting satellites since 1978…. There have been thousands of reports over two hundred years of regional climate responses to the 11-year variations of solar radiation, ranging from cycles of Nile River flows, African droughts, to temperature measurements at various selected stations, but a coherent global signal at the surface has not yet been established statistically….

Page 3:

The surface pattern in Figure 2 shows clearly the polar amplification of warming, predicted also by models for the global-warming problem, with largest warming in the Arctic (3 times that of the global mean), followed by that of the Antarctic (2 times). …

Consistent with the zonal mean pattern shown in Figure 2, the largest warming in Figure 3 occurs over the two polar regions. Warming of about 0.7ºK [1.26ºF] occurs near seasonal sea-ice edges around the Antarctic continent and the Arctic Ocean….

[246] Paper: “Resonant Interactions between Solar Activity and Climate.” By S. M. Tobias and N. O. Weiss. Journal of the American Meteorological Society, November 1, 2000. Pages 3745–3759. <journals.ametsoc.org>

Page 3746:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report (Houghton and others 1996) dismissed any significant link between solar variability and climate on the grounds that changes in irradiance were too small. Such an attitude can no longer be sustained (Mann and others 1998; Wigley and others 1998; Tett and others 1999) but the mechanism that allows small alterations in irradiance to be so effective still remains unclear. Some process of amplification is required.

Page 3756:

What can we learn from this idealized calculation about solar forcing of climatic change? We have shown that a weak but resonant solar input can have a profound effect. It is well known that periodic forcing can control the behavior of either periodically or chaotically oscillating systems if the frequencies are in resonance. We have confirmed that strong resonant coupling persists when both systems are chaotic. …

… Our main conclusion, however, is that solar forcing could indeed be more significant than has previously been supposed.

[247] Textbook: Exploring Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology. By Jon P. Davidson, Walter E. Reed, and Paul M. Davies. Prentice-Hall, 1997.

Page 145:

Climate Dynamics

Abundant evidence shows that Earth’s climate has fluctuated substantially—from temperatures that were much warmer than those of the modern climate to much colder temperatures. We know there have been periods when Earth lacked polar ice caps and there have been times of major glacial advances. Even in the absence of polar ice caps, however, the polar regions will always be colder than equatorial areas because the angle of sunlight incidence is much lower at the poles (Fig. 6.8). At high inclinations—when the sun is directly overhead—the maximum intensities of light and heat reach Earth; at low inclinations, the minimum heat and light intensities reach Earth. In Florida or Hawaii, a person can get a tan in December as well as in June because these regions of low latitude have a high angle of sunlight incidence even in the winter (see Fig. 6.8).

Page 370:

In the past few years, the U.S. National Science Foundation, in cooperation with the Danish government, has conducted a drilling project in central Greenland, the goal of which is to retrieve a complete core through the ice sheet. Simultaneously scientists from the University of Bergen have retrieved an ocean bottom core from a region off the southwest coast of Norway. Together, these two sets of cores provided us with some major surprises. Work to date on these samples has shown that the climate in the northern regions shifted from “mild” to “glacial” much more rapidly than we had imagined. Some of these climatic shifts occurred in under 10 years, and most in far less than 100 years (Fig. 1c).

[248] Textbook: Evolution of Sedimentary Rocks. By Robert M. Garrels (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) and Fred T. Mackenzie (Northwestern University). W. W. Norton & Company, 1971.

Page 225: “Every area of the continents has been at one time covered by the sea, and there are some places that show clear record of being submerged at least 20 separate times.”

[249] Textbook: Exploring Earth and Life Through Time (2nd edition). By Steven M. Stanley (Johns Hopkins University). W.H. Freeman and Company, 1989.

Page 498:

During the Cretaceous Period, temperatures changed in different ways in different places, but both oxygen isotopes and fossil plant occurrences suggest that climates grew generally warmer during the first part of the period….

During the middle part of the Cretaceous Period, there were intervals when black muds covered large areas of shallow seafloor (Figure 16-27). An apparent connection exists between global temperature, water circulation, and the presence or known to form where bottom waters are depleted of oxygen: It appears that extensive black muds of this kind accumulated in shallow seas when unusually poor circulation within ocean basins led to the stagnation of much of the water column. As shown in Figure 16-28, these waters may at times have spilled over from oceanic areas into shallow seas, leading to the epicontinental deposition of black muds. At other times in the earth’s history, including the present, cold waters in polar regions have sunk to the deep sea and spread along the seafloor toward the equator, carrying with them oxygen from the atmosphere (page 48). The light color of the sediments that represent these intervals in cores that have been taken from the deep seafloor indicates the presence of oxygen during deposition. The depositional records of these intervals show frequent interruptions, because the flow of the bottom water toward the equator scoured the sediment from the seafloor. Extensive black mud deposition occurred when polar regions were too warm for oxygen-rich surface waters to descend and spread toward the equator. Thus, the widespread accumulation of black muds provides still more evidence that the middle portion of the Cretaceous Period was a particularly warm interval; not even the waters of the deep sea were cold.

[250] Book: Hawaiian Natural History, Ecology, and Evolution. By Alan C. Ziegler. University of Hawaii Press, 2002.

Pages 94–95:

At the opposite extreme from superheated bodies of water are glaciers formerly present in the Hawaiian Islands. On the higher mountains of the islands of Hawai’i and, occasionally, Maui, winter precipitation usually takes the form of snow (Plate 7.1). During past glacial epochs this snowfall was apparently greater (and/or annual temperatures slightly lower) than at present, so that a portion of the winter snowpack persisted from year to year. …. Continued accumulation of snow, and its pressure transformation into ice, led to the formation of a prehistoric glacier on at least Mauna Kea [a volcano on the big island of Hawaii]. In fact, up to four successive glaciers, probably ranging in thickness from 100 to 170 m (330 to 560 feet), are thought to have existed on the upper 300–600 m (990 to 1980 feet) or so of the summit….

… Because a glacier picks up material from the rock or other substrate over which it flows, melting of the lowest-elevation ice results in deposition of an easily identified accumulation of lithic debris or soil, called a terminal moraine. Another indication of prior glaciation is the presence of distinctive parallel grooves or striations on bedrock of an area, caused by the flow of the thick rock-laden ice over its surface.

[251] Publication: “Our Changing Continent.” By John S. Schlee. U.S. Geological Survey, 1991. Last updated 2/15/00. <pubs.usgs.gov>

Before the 1830’s, geologists were uncertain about the origin of deposits of boulders crudely mixed with sand, silt, and clay which cover large portions of Europe and North America. Associated with these deposits were large, striated boulders (some as large as a house) and scratched and grooved bedrock surfaces. …

In 1836 the famous naturalist Louis Agassiz spent a summer in the Swiss Alps, where he had an opportunity to examine the glaciers and glacial deposits of the area. From his observations, Agassiz concluded that this blanket of boulders, sand, and clay had been spread across much of Europe by large continental glaciers during a prehistoric Ice Age.

Much of what Agassiz saw could be explained only by glacial action. Because a glacier is a solid mass of ice, it moves very slowly, and as it moves, it picks up all sizes of debris, ranging from huge boulders to fine silts and clays. As the ice melts, all the debris is left behind as a layer of poorly sorted material.

From the nature and distribution of glacial deposits, geologists have formed a picture of what the Earth looked like during a glacial event. …

During the Great Ice Age … large portions of Canada and the Northern United States were blanketed by the continental ice sheet, as shown on the map. Much of the rich soil of the Midwest is glacial in origin, and the drainage patterns of the Ohio River and the position of the Great Lakes were influenced by the ice. The effects of the glaciers can be seen in the stony soil of some areas, the hilly land surfaces dotted with lakes, the scratched and grooved bedrock surfaces, and the long, low ridges composed of sand and gravel which formed at the front of the ice sheet.

[252] Webpage: “Glossary of Climate Change Terms.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Last updated September 29, 2016. <19january2017snapshot.epa.gov>

Climate Feedback

A process that acts to amplify or reduce direct warming or cooling effects.

Feedback Mechanisms

Factors which increase or amplify (positive feedback) or decrease (negative feedback) the rate of a process. An example of positive climatic feedback is the ice-albedo feedback. See climate feedback.

[253] Paper: “How Well Do We Understand and Evaluate Climate Change Feedback Processes?” By Sandrine Bony and others. Journal of Climate, August 1, 2006. Pages 3445–3482. <journals.ametsoc.org>

Page 3447:

First, climate feedback studies have long been focused on the derivation of global estimates of the feedbacks using diagnostic methods that are not directly applicable to observations and so do not allow any observational assessment (see Stephens 2005 for an extensive discussion of these aspects). Indeed, climate feedbacks are defined as partial derivatives [Eq. (A2)]. Although partial derivatives can be readily computed in models, it is not possible to compute them rigorously from observations because we cannot statistically manipulate the observations in such a way as to insure that only one variable is changing.

[254] Paper: “How Well Do We Understand and Evaluate Climate Change Feedback Processes?” By Sandrine Bony and others. Journal of Climate, August 1, 2006. Pages 3445–3482. <journals.ametsoc.org>

Pages 3446–3447: “The water vapor feedback constitutes by far the strongest feedback … for coupled GCMs [general circulation models used for climate change projections] participating in the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] Fourth Assessment Report [2007]…. These results indicate that in GCMs, the water vapor feedback amplifies the earth’s global mean temperature response … by a factor of 2 or more….”

Page 3460: “Indeed, the global warming associated with a carbon dioxide doubling is amplified by nearly a factor of 2 by the water vapor feedback considered in isolation from other feedbacks … and possibly by as much as a factor of 3 or more when interactions with other feedbacks are considered….”

[255] Article: “Water Vapor: Distribution and Trends.” By Dian J. Seidel. Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change. Wiley, 2002. <eu.wiley.com>

On longer time scales, water vapor changes are thought to contribute to an important positive feedback mechanism for climate change, as follows. Warming of the surface, particularly the sea surface, leads to enhanced evaporation. Since warmer air requires more moisture to reach saturation, atmospheric temperature increases allow for increases in atmospheric water vapor. Due to the fact that water vapor is a greenhouse gas, enhanced water vapor in the lower troposphere results in further warming, allowing a higher water vapor concentration, thereby creating a positive feedback.

[256] Paper: “How Well Do We Understand and Evaluate Climate Change Feedback Processes?” By Sandrine Bony and others. Journal of Climate, August 1, 2006. Pages 3445–3482. <journals.ametsoc.org>

Page 3446: “Water vapor constitutes a powerful greenhouse gas, and therefore an increase of water vapor with temperature will oppose the increase in radiative cooling due to increasing temperature, and so constitute a positive feedback.”

[257] Paper: “Trends in Middle- and Upper-Level Tropospheric Humidity From NCEP Reanalysis Data.” By Garth Paltridge, Albert Arking, and Michael J. Pook. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, February 26, 2009. Pages 351–359. <pdfs.semanticscholar.org>

Page 1 (of PDF):

The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis data on tropospheric humidity are examined for the period 1973 to 2007. It is accepted that radiosonde-derived [weather balloon] humidity data must be treated with great caution, particularly at altitudes above the 500 hPa pressure level. … Water vapor feedback in climate models is positive mainly because of their … [increasing specific humidity†] … in the mid-to-upper troposphere‡ as the planet warms. Negative trends in … [specific humidity] as found in the NCEP data would imply that long-term water vapor feedback is negative—that it would reduce rather than amplify the response of the climate system to external forcing such as that from increasing atmospheric CO2.

Page 5 (of PDF): “[W]hile the specific humidity … has increased at the lowest levels of the troposphere over the last three or four decades … it has decreased in the middle and upper levels.”

Page 8 (of PDF): “[I]ncreases in total column water vapor in response to global warming do not necessarily indicate positive water vapor feedback, since very small decreases of water vapor in the mid-to-upper troposphere can negate the effect of large increases in the boundary layer.”

Page 9 (of PDF):

[I]t is important that the trends of water vapor shown by the NCEP data for the middle and upper troposphere should not be ‘written off’ simply on the basis that they are not supported by climate models—or indeed on the basis that they are not supported by the few relevant satellite measurements. There are still many problems associated with satellite retrieval of the humidity information pertaining to a particular level of the atmosphere—particularly in the upper troposphere.

NOTES:

• † Specific humidity “is the mass of water vapor (given in grams) per mass of air (given in kilograms).” In contrast, relative humidity is “the ratio between the amount of water vapor in air of a given temperature and the maximum amount of vapor that the air could hold at that temperature.” Relative humidity is the measure that “we commonly encounter in newspaper, television, and radio weather reports….” [Book: Fundamentals of Physical Geography. By James F. Petersen and others. Brooks/Cole, 2011. Page 104.]

• ‡ The troposphere is “the layer of the atmosphere closest to Earth’s surface. People live in the troposphere, and nearly all of Earth’s weather—including most clouds, rain, and snow—occurs there. The troposphere contains about 80 percent of the atmosphere’s mass and about 99 percent of its water.” [Article: “Troposphere.” Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2004.]

[258] Paper: “The Thermodynamic Relationship Between Surface Temperature and Water Vapor Concentration in the Troposphere.” By William C. Gilbert. Energy & Environment, August 2010. Pages 263–275. <www.friendsofscience.org>

Page 274:

The theoretical and empirical physics/thermodynamics outlined in this paper predict that systems having higher surface temperatures will show higher humidity levels at lower elevations but lower humidity levels at higher elevations. This is demonstrated in the empirical decadal observational data outlined in the Introduction, in the daily radiosonde [weather balloon] data analysis discussed above and explained by classical thermodynamics/meteorology relationships.

[259] Paper: “How Well Do We Understand and Evaluate Climate Change Feedback Processes?” By Sandrine Bony and others. Journal of Climate, August 1, 2006. Pages 3445–3482. <journals.ametsoc.org>

Pages 3446–3447:

The water vapor feedback constitutes by far the strongest feedback … for coupled GCMs [general circulation models used for climate change projections] participating in the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] Fourth Assessment Report [2007]…. These results indicate that in GCMs, the water vapor feedback amplifies the earth’s global mean temperature response … by a factor of 2 or more … and the cloud feedback amplifies it by 10%–50% depending on GCMs.

[260] Paper: “How Well Do We Understand and Evaluate Climate Change Feedback Processes?” By Sandrine Bony and others. Journal of Climate, August 1, 2006. Pages 3445–3482. <journals.ametsoc.org>

Page 3446: “But the sign and the magnitude of the global mean cloud feedback depends on so many factors that it remains very uncertain.”

Pages 3450–3451: “The Tropics and the extratropics are associated with a large spectrum of cloud types, ranging from low-level boundary layer clouds to deep convective clouds and anvils. Because of their different top altitudes and optical properties, the different cloud types affect the earth’s radiation budget in various ways.”

[261] Paper: “Cloud and Radiation Budget Changes Associated with Tropical Intraseasonal Oscillations.” By Roy W. Spencer and others. Geophysical Research Letters, August 9, 2007. <citeseerx.ist.psu.edu>

Page 1: “The precipitation systems also produce clouds that both warm the atmosphere through longwave ‘greenhouse’ warming, and cool the surface through shortwave (solar) shading.”

[262] Article: “Cosmoclimatology: A New Theory Emerges.” By Henrik Svensmark. Astronomy & Geophysics, February, 2007. <onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 1.20: “Low-level clouds cover more than a quarter of the Earth and exert a strong cooling effect at the surface. (For clouds at higher altitudes there is a complicated trade-off between cooling and warming.)”

[263] Article: “Cloud.” By Margaret A. LeMone (Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research). World Book Encyclopedia, 2007 Deluxe Edition.

“High clouds, called cirrus, cirrostratus, and cirrocumulus, are formed entirely of ice crystals. Other clouds are mainly water droplets. Cirrus clouds are the delicate wispy clouds that appear high in the sky, sometimes higher than 35,000 feet (10,700 meters).”

[264] Paper: “Cloud and Radiation Budget Changes Associated with Tropical Intraseasonal Oscillations.” By Roy W. Spencer and others. Geophysical Research Letters, August 9, 2007. <citeseerx.ist.psu.edu>

Page 1: “The increase in longwave cooling is traced to decreasing coverage by ice clouds…. The tropical tropospheric heat budget is dominated by … heating in precipitation systems and longwave (infrared) cooling to outer space… The precipitation systems also produce clouds that both warm the atmosphere through longwave ‘greenhouse’ warming, and cool the surface through shortwave (solar) shading.”

Pages 3–4:

The decrease in ice cloud coverage is conceptually consistent with the “infrared iris” hypothesized by Lindzen and others [2001], who proposed that tropical cirroform cloud coverage might open and close, like the iris of an eye, in response to anomalously warm or cool conditions, providing a negative radiative feedback on temperature change. We caution, though, that the ice cloud reduction with tropospheric warming reported here is on a time scale of weeks; it is not obvious whether similar behavior would occur on the longer time scales associated with global warming.

Page 4: “The sum of … [shortwave cooling] and … [longwave warming] … reveals a strongly negative relationship. … This indicates that the net … [cooling and warming] effect of clouds during the evolution of the [30- to 60-day tropical temperature fluctuations] is to cool the ocean-atmosphere system during its tropospheric warm phase, and to warm it during its cool phase.”

[265] Press release: “Cirrus Disappearance: Warming Might Thin Heat-Trapping Clouds.” University of Alabama Huntsville, November 5, 2007. <www.sciencedaily.com>

The widely accepted (albeit unproven) theory that manmade global warming will accelerate itself by creating more heat-trapping clouds is challenged this month in new research from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Instead of creating more clouds, individual tropical warming cycles that served as proxies for global warming saw a decrease in the coverage of heat-trapping cirrus clouds, says Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in UAHuntsville’s Earth System Science Center.

That was not what he expected to find.

“All leading climate models forecast that as the atmosphere warms there should be an increase in high altitude cirrus clouds, which would amplify any warming caused by manmade greenhouse gases,” he said. “That amplification is a positive feedback. What we found in month-to-month fluctuations of the tropical climate system was a strongly negative feedback. As the tropical atmosphere warms, cirrus clouds decrease. That allows more infrared heat to escape from the atmosphere to outer space.”

[266] Article: “Part of the Problem and Part of the Answer.” By Sandra Postel. EPA Journal, January/February 1989. Pages 44–45. <nepis.epa.gov>

Page 44: “Higher CO2 levels usually have a fertilizing effect on plants, spurring them to grow faster. … If trees did indeed grow faster as atmospheric CO2 levels increased, they would remove carbon from the atmosphere more rapidly. This ‘negative feedback’ would help slow the global warming. So far, unfortunately, no convincing evidence suggests that trees in their natural environments would respond this way.”

Page 46: “Postel is vice president for research at Worldwatch Institute. This article is an excerpt adapted from her article entitled, ‘A Green Fix to the Global Warm-Up,’ published in World Watch magazine (Vol. 1. No. 5: September–October 1988).”

[267] Paper: “Greening of the Earth and Its Drivers.” By Zaichun Zhu and others. Nature Climate Change, April 25, 2016. Pages 791–795. <www.nature.com>

Page 791:

Here we use three long-term satellite leaf area index (LAI) records and ten global ecosystem models to investigate four key drivers of LAI trends during 1982–2009. We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning). Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition (9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (LCC) (4%). …

Trends from the three long-term satellite LAI data sets consistently show positive values over a large proportion of the global vegetated area since 1982 (Fig. 1). The global greening trend estimated from the three data sets is 0.068 ± 0.045 m² m^–2 yr^–1.

Page 792: “The GIMMS [global inventory modeling and mapping studies] LAI3g data set, which includes recent data up to 2014, shows a continuation of the trend from the 1982 to 2009 period (Fig. 1 and Supplementary Fig. 3). The regions with the largest greening trends, consistent across the three data sets, are in southeast North America, the northern Amazon, Europe, Central Africa and Southeast Asia.”

[268] Supplement: “Greening of the Earth and Its Drivers.” By Zaichun Zhu and others. Nature Climate Change, April 25, 2016. Pages 791–795. <www.nature.com>

Page 5: “The growing season integrated leaf area index (hereafter refer to LAI) has been found to be a good proxy of vegetation primary production.”

[269] Calculated with data from the paper: “Global Land Change From 1982 to 2016.” By Xiao-Peng Song and others. Nature, August 30, 2018. Pages 639–651. <www.researchgate.net>

Page 639:

Land change is a cause and consequence of global environmental change.^1,2 Changes in land use and land cover considerably alter the Earth’s energy balance and biogeochemical cycles, which contributes to climate change and—in turn—affects land surface properties and the provision of ecosystem services.^1–4 However, quantification of global land change is lacking. Here we analyse 35 years’ worth of satellite data and provide a comprehensive record of global land-change dynamics during the period 1982–2016. We show that—contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally⁵—tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km² (+7.1% relative to the 1982 level). This overall net gain is the result of a net loss in the tropics being outweighed by a net gain in the extratropics.

The total area of tree cover increased by 2.24 million km² from 1982 to 2016 (90% confidence interval (CI): 0.93, 3.42 million km²), which represents a +7.1% change relative to 1982 tree cover….

Page 650: “Extended Data Table 1. Estimates of 1982 Land-Cover Area and 1982–2016 Land-Cover Change at Continental and Global Scales … Tree Canopy Cover … Area 1982 (10³ km²) … Global [=] 31,628”

CALCULATIONS:

• 0.93 million km² increase / 31.63 million km² tree cover in 1982 = 2.9%
• 3.42 million km² increase / 31.63 million km² tree cover in 1982 = 10.8%

[270] Paper: “How Well Do We Understand and Evaluate Climate Change Feedback Processes?” By Sandrine Bony and others. Journal of Climate, August 1, 2006. Pages 3445–3482. <journals.ametsoc.org>

Page 3446:

Every climate variable that responds to a change in global mean surface temperature through physical or chemical processes and that directly or indirectly affects the earth’s radiation budget has the potential to constitute a climate change feedback. … [W]e will not consider the feedbacks associated with the response to temperature of the carbon cycle or of aerosols and trace gases, nor those associated with soil moisture changes or ocean processes, although these processes might have a substantial impact on the magnitude, the pattern, or the timing of climate warming (NRC 2003).

Page 3446: “The temperature lapse rate in the troposphere (i.e., the rate of decrease of atmospheric temperature with height) affects the atmospheric emission of longwave (LW) radiation to space, and thus the earth’s greenhouse effect.”

Page 3469:

The main simulated feedback associated with snow is an increase in absorbed solar radiation resulting from a retreat of highly reflective snow in a warmer climate. This process, known as snow albedo feedback, enhances simulated warming and contributes to poleward amplification of climate change. … In spite of these advances, Northern Hemisphere snow albedo feedback remains subject to considerable uncertainty and is therefore a likely source of divergence and errors in models.

[271] Article: “Stephen Henry Schneider.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, August 3, 2010. <bit.ly>

American Climatologist … As an initial member (1988) of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Schneider was one of the IPCC scientists who shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace with former U.S. vice president Al Gore for their work on educating the public about climate change. … He also helped found the climate project at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo., and the journal Climatic Change, which he edited until his death.

[272] Article: “Our Fragile Earth.” By Jonathan Schell. Discover, October 1989. Pages 44–50. <www.justfacts.com>

Page 47:

Stephen Schneider of the National Center for Atmospheric Research describes the scientists’ dilemma this way: “On the one hand, as scientists, we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but—which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”

[273] Webpage: “Dr. James Hansen, World-Renowned Climatologist.” National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Accessed December 21, 2021 at <www.nasa.gov>

“Dr. James Hansen, world-renowned climatologist and former Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.”

[274] Curriculum Vitae: “James E. Hansen.” Columbia University. Accessed January 28, 2022 at <www.columbia.edu>

Page 2 (of PDF): “Professional Employment: … 1981–2013 … Director: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies”

[275] Calculated with data from: “The Greenhouse Effect: Impacts on Current Global Temperature and Regional Heat Waves.” By James E. Hansen (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies). U.S. Senate, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, June 23, 1988. <play.google.com>

Page 39–40:

The other curves in this figure are the results of global climate model calculations for three scenarios of atmospheric trace gas growth. We have considered several scenarios because there are uncertainties in the exact trace gas growth in the past and especially in the future. We have considered cases ranging from business as usual, which is scenario A, to draconian emission cuts, scenario C, which would totally eliminate net trace gas growth by year 2000.

Page 48:

Fig. 3. Annual mean global surface air temperature computed for trace gas scenarios A, B and C described in reference 1. (Scenario A assumes continued growth rates of trace gas emissions typical of the past 20 years, in other words, about 1.58 yr^-1) emission growth; scenario B has emission rates approximately fixed at current rates; scenario C drastically reduces trace gas emissions between 1990 and 2000. ) Observed temperatures are from reference 6. The shaded range is an estimate of global temperature during the peak of the current and previous interglacial periods, about 6,000 and 120,000 years before present, respectively. The zero point for observations is the 1951–1980 mean (reference 6); the zero point for the model is the control run mean.

NOTE: Credit for pointing out this data belongs to Christopher Monckton, Deputy Leader of the U.K. Independence Party.

CALCULATIONS:

• Estimated decadal average from 1980–1989 ≈ 0.29ºC
• Estimated decadal average from 2010–2019 ≈ 1.29ºC
• 1.29ºC – 0.29ºC = projected increase of 1ºC, or 1.8ºF

[276] Calculated with the dataset: “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Polar-Orbiting Satellites, Microwave Sounding Unit, Lower Troposphere (T2LT), Version 6.0.” National Space Science and Technology Center at the University of Alabama Huntsville and National Climatic Data Center of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <www.nsstc.uah.edu>

NOTES:

• The temperature increase between the 1980s and the most-recent decade is calculated by subtracting the average of the 1980s from the average of the latest available decade of data.
• For more details, context, and confirmation of this dataset, see the section of this research on global temperature changes.
• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[277] CALCULATION: Actual increase of 0.4ºC / projected increase of 1.0ºC = 0.4, or about two-fifths.

[278] Article: “A Character Sketch of Greenhouse.” by Dr. David Rind. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Public Affairs, February 1989. <nepis.epa.gov>

Page 6:

Question: How “Dire” Is the Forecast of Coming Climate Change?

It is estimated that the ice age climate was some 4°C colder than today’s. At that time (some 18,000 years ago), ice covered the area now occupied by New York City. Considering that the doubled CO2 [carbon dioxide] climate is estimated to be warmer to the same degree that the ice ages were cooler, large changes in the climate system may well be expected if this comes to pass. The GISS [Goddard Institute for Space Studies] model’s forecast for the next 50 years gives changes of 2°C (3.6°F) by the year 2020, which would make the earth warmer than it is thought to have been at any point in historical time.

Page 7: “Dr. Rind is an atmospheric scientist at the Institute for Space Studies, Goddard Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University. He is a leading researcher on aspects of the greenhouse theory of atmospheric warming from certain gases.”

[279] Book: Our Warming Planet: Topics in Climate Dynamics. Edited by Cynthia Rosenzweig and David Rind. World Scientific, April 30, 2018.

“Climate Lecture 5: The Role of Clouds in Climate.” By Anthony D. Del Genio. Pages 103–130. <ntrs.nasa.gov>

Page 103:

David Rind has played a central role in the science of the modeling of climate change. He was the scientific driving force behind the development and evaluation of the first Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) global climate model (GCM), Model II. Model II was one of the three original GCMs whose projections of climate change in response to a doubling of CO2 concentration were the basis for the influential Charney Report that produced the first assessment of global climate sensitivity. David used Model II to pioneer the scientific field of climate dynamics, performing a broad range of investigations of processes controlling individual elements of the general circulation and how they changed over a wide range of past and potential future climates.

[280] Calculated with the dataset: “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Polar-Orbiting Satellites, Microwave Sounding Unit, Lower Troposphere (T2LT), Version 6.0.” National Space Science and Technology Center at the University of Alabama Huntsville and National Climatic Data Center of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <www.nsstc.uah.edu>

NOTES:

• The temperature increase between the 1980s and the most-recent decade is calculated by subtracting the average of the 1980s from the average of the latest available decade of data.
• For more details, context, and confirmation of this dataset, see the section of this research on global temperature changes.
• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[281] CALCULATION: Actual increase of 0.4ºC / projected increase of 2ºC = 0.2, or one-fifth.

[282] Webpage: “Dr. Noel Brown, Vice Chair.” World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO). Accessed May 8, 2023 at <www.wango.org>

“Dr. Noel Brown is President of Friends of the United Nations. Previously, he served as Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), North American Regional Office.”

[283] Remarks: “Dr. Noel Brown, Environmental Diplomat.” By Kyle Baker. Pace University, May 2003. <www.pace.edu>

Dr. Noel Brown is the former Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, North American Regional office. Dr. Brown holds a B.A. in Political Science and Economics from Seattle University, an M.A. in International Law and Organization from Georgetown University and Ph. D. in International Relations from Yale University. He also holds a diploma in International Law from The Hague Academy of International Law.

Over the past two decades, Dr. Brown represented the United Nations Environment Program at a number of the major international conferences and negotiations on environment and development issues and on international law, including the historic Earth Summit in Rio, 1992.

[284] Article: “U.N. Official Predicts Disaster: Says Greenhouse Effect Could Wipe Some Nations Off Map.” By Peter James Spielmann. Associated Press, June 30, 1989. <apnews.com>

A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.

Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of “eco-refugees,” threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP.

[285] Article: “U.N. Official Predicts Disaster: Says Greenhouse Effect Could Wipe Some Nations Off Map.” By Peter James Spielmann. Associated Press, June 30, 1989. <www.newspapers.com>

A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. …

He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control. …

The most conservative scientific estimate that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years, said Brown. …

He said even the most conservative scientists “already tell us there’s nothing we can do now to stop a … change” of about 3 degrees.

[286] Article: “U.N. Official Predicts Disaster: Says Greenhouse Effect Could Wipe Some Nations Off Map.” By Peter James Spielmann. Associated Press, June 30, 1989. <apnews.com>

A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.

Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of “eco-refugees,” threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. …

He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control. …

The most conservative scientific estimate that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years, said Brown. …

He said even the most conservative scientists “already tell us there’s nothing we can do now to stop a … change” of about 3 degrees.

[287] Calculated with the dataset: “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Polar-Orbiting Satellites, Microwave Sounding Unit, Lower Troposphere (T2LT), Version 6.0.” National Space Science and Technology Center at the University of Alabama Huntsville and National Climatic Data Center of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <www.nsstc.uah.edu>

NOTES:

• The temperature increase between the 1980s and the most-recent decade is calculated by subtracting the average of the 1980s from the average of the latest available decade of data.
• For more details, context, and confirmation of this dataset, see the section of this research on global temperature changes.
• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[288] CALCULATIONS:

• Actual increase of 0.7ºF / projected increase of 1ºF = 0.7, or seven-tenths.
• Actual increase of 0.7ºF / projected increase of 7ºF = 0.1, or one-tenth.

[289] Article: “With a Global Focus.” By William H. Mansfield III. EPA Journal, January/February 1989. Pages 37–39. <nepis.epa.gov>

Page 37:

“Global warming may be the greatest challenge facing humankind,” according to Dr. Mostafa K. Tolba, Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and Under Secretary General of the United Nations. Indeed, the mounting concern about climate change impacts has sent storm warning flags aloft in the United Nations….

… The natural systems—both plant and animal—will be less able than man to cope and adapt. Any change of temperature, rainfall, and sea level of the magnitude now anticipated will be destructive to natural systems and living things and hence to man as well.

Page 39: “Mansfield is Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.”

[290] Paper: “Climate-Driven Increases in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production From 1982 to 1999.” By Ramakrishna R. Nemani and others. Science, June 6, 2003. Pages 1560–1563. <www.sciencemag.org>

Page 1560:

We present a global investigation of vegetation responses to climatic changes by analyzing 18 years (1982 to 1999) of both climatic data and satellite observations of vegetation activity. …

Between 1980 and 2000, Earth experienced dramatic environmental changes (1). It had two of the warmest decades in the instrumental record (1980s and 1990s), had three intense and persistent El Niño events (1982 to 1983, 1987 to 1988, and 1997 to 1998), and saw noteworthy changes in tropical cloudiness (2) and monsoon dynamics (3). Meanwhile, atmospheric CO2 levels increased by 9% [337 to 369 parts per million (ppm)] and human population increased by 37% (4.45 × 109 to 6.08 × 109).

Page 1561: “Globally, NPP [see next footnote for definition] increased (Fig. 3) by 6.17%, 3.42 PgC over 18 years (P < 0.001), between 1982 and 1999. Ecosystems in all tropical regions and those in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere accounted for 80% of the increase.”

[291] Book: The Dictionary of Physical Geography (3rd edition). Edited by David S.G. Thomas and Andrew Goudie. Blackwell Publishing, 2000.

Pages 51–52:

biological productivity The rate at which organic matter accumulates over time within a given area. … NPP [net primary productivity] is the net rate of organic matter accumulating after allowance is made for the fact that the green plants themselves need to utilize some of the assimilated energy in order to exist and that some energy is lost to the system by the death or herbivory of the photosynthesizing plants. Human populations are dependent for their existence on biological productivity, albeit often in an artificial and manipulated form as agricultural production. Humans, as consumers, rely on both net primary productivity of agricultural crops and the secondary productivity of herbivores.

[292] Paper: “A Continuous Satellite-Derived Measure of Global Terrestrial Primary Production.” By Steven W. Running and others. BioScience, June 2004. Pages 547–560. <academic.oup.com>

Pages 550–551:

… Nemani and colleagues (2003) evaluated recent trends in global NPP [see previous footnote for definition] from 1982 through 1999. The somewhat surprising result is that overall global NPP increased by 6.2% during this period, with 25% of global vegetated area showing significant increases and only 7% showing decreasing trends. The complex geographic pattern of these trends (figure 3) illustrates that the Amazon basin accounted for 42% of the increase in global NPP. These trends in NPP are a biospheric response to recent changes in global climate, including higher temperatures, longer temperate growing seasons, more rainfall in some previously water-limited areas, and increased radiation (a result of reduced cloudiness) in regions such as the Amazon basin. …

Figure 3. Trends in global net primary production (NPP) anomalies from 1981 through 1999, computed from the historical AVHRR-NDVI (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer–normalized difference vegetation index) data set. Data are from Nemani and colleagues (2003).

[293] Article: “The Weird Effect Climate Change Will Have on Plant Growth.” By Justin Worland. Time, June 11, 2015. <time.com>

Add the hindering of plant growth to the long and growing list of the ways climate change may affect life on our planet. The number of days when plants can grow could decrease by 11% by 2100 assuming limited efforts to stall climate change, affecting some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, according to a new study in PLOS Biology.

Climate change affects a number of variables that determine how much plants can grow. A 7% decline in the average number of freezing days will actually aid plant growth, according to the study, which relied on an analysis of satellite data and weather projections. At the same time, extreme temperatures, a decrease in water availability and changes to soil conditions will actually make it more difficult for plants to thrive. Overall, climate change is expected to stunt plant growth.

Declining plant growth would destroy forests and dramatically change the habitats that are necessary for many species to survive.

[294] Paper: “Suitable Days for Plant Growth Disappear Under Projected Climate Change: Potential Human and Biotic Vulnerability.” By Camilo Mora and others. PLOS Biology, June 10, 2015. <journals.plos.org>

Here we use climate projections under alternative mitigation scenarios to show how changes in environmental variables that limit plant growth could impact ecosystems and people. … Areas in Russia, China, and Canada are projected to gain suitable plant growing days, but the rest of the world will experience losses. Notably, tropical areas could lose up to 200 suitable plant growing days per year. These changes will impact most of the world’s terrestrial ecosystems, potentially triggering climate feedbacks.

[295] Paper: “Greening of the Earth and Its Drivers.” By Zaichun Zhu and others. Nature Climate Change, April 25, 2016. Pages 791–795. <www.nature.com>

Page 791:

Here we use three long-term satellite leaf area index (LAI) records and ten global ecosystem models to investigate four key drivers of LAI trends during 1982–2009. We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning). Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition (9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (LCC) (4%). …

Trends from the three long-term satellite LAI data sets consistently show positive values over a large proportion of the global vegetated area since 1982 (Fig. 1). The global greening trend estimated from the three data sets is 0.068 ± 0.045 m² m^–2 yr^–1.

Page 792: “The GIMMS [global inventory modeling and mapping studies] LAI3g data set, which includes recent data up to 2014, shows a continuation of the trend from the 1982 to 2009 period (Fig. 1 and Supplementary Fig. 3). The regions with the largest greening trends, consistent across the three data sets, are in southeast North America, the northern Amazon, Europe, Central Africa and Southeast Asia.”

Page 796: “The growing season integrated leaf area index was used as a proxy of vegetation

growth in this study.”

[296] Supplement: “Greening of the Earth and Its Drivers.” By Zaichun Zhu and others. Nature Climate Change, April 25, 2016. <www.nature.com>

Page 5: “The growing season integrated leaf area index (hereafter refer to LAI) has been found to be a good proxy of vegetation primary production.”

[297] Dataset: “Monthly Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations (ppm) Derived from Flask Air Samples. South Pole: Latitude 90.0S Elevation 2810m.” University of California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Accessed May 3, 2023 at <scrippsco2.ucsd.edu>

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[298] Book: Carbon Dioxide Recovery and Utilization. Edited by Michele Aresta. Kluwer, 2003.

Page 35:

Additive to Greenhouse Atmosphere for Additional Plant Productivity and Consistent Quality

Plants need water, light, warmth, nutrition and CO2 to grow. By increasing the CO2 level in the greenhouse atmosphere (typical to 600 ppm instead of normal 400 ppm value), the growth for some plants can be stimulated in an important way, with often yield increases up to 20%, especially for tomato, cucumber, strawberry, etc. but also for potted plants and cut flowers.

[299] Article: “With a Global Focus.” By William H. Mansfield III. EPA Journal, January/February 1989. Pages 37–39. <nepis.epa.gov>

Page 37:

“Global warming may be the greatest challenge facing humankind,” according to Dr. Mostafa K. Tolba, Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and Under Secretary General of the United Nations. Indeed, the mounting concern about climate change impacts has sent storm warning flags aloft in the United Nations….

Food supplies and forests would be adversely affected. Changes in rainfall patterns would disrupt agriculture. Warmer temperatures would shift grain-growing regions polewards. …

… The natural systems—both plant and animal—will be less able than man to cope and adapt. Any change of temperature, rainfall, and sea level of the magnitude now anticipated will be destructive to natural systems and living things and hence to man as well.

Page 39: “Mansfield is Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

[300] Calculated with data from the report: “The State of the World’s Forests 2020: Forests, Biodiversity and People.” United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2020. <www.fao.org>

Page 11: “Table 1: Annual Rate of Forest Area Change … Net change rate (%/year) … 1990–2000 [=] –0.19 … 2010–2020 [=] –0.06”

CALCULATION: (0.19% – 0.06%) / 0.19% = 68%

[301] Report: “The State of the World’s Forests 2018—Forest Pathways to Sustainable Development.” United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2018. <www.fao.org>

Page 60: “2. The above-ground biomass stock in forests, comprising stems, stumps, branches, bark, seeds and foliage: biomass stock has remained stable since the 1990s.”

[302] Webpage: “Biomass Explained.” U.S. Energy Information Administration. Last updated June 21, 2018. <www.eia.gov>

“Biomass is organic material that comes from plants and animals, and it is a renewable source of energy. Biomass contains stored energy from the sun. Plants absorb the sun’s energy in a process called photosynthesis. When biomass is burned, the chemical energy in biomass is released as heat. Biomass can be burned directly or converted to liquid biofuels or biogas that can be burned as fuels.”

[303] Report: “Forests and Climate Change Working Paper 5—Definitional Issues Related to Reducing Emissions From Deforestation in Developing Countries.” By Dieter Schoene and others. United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2007. <www.fao.org>

Appendix 1: Glossary of Supporting Terms

Term … Above-ground biomass … Definition … All living biomass above the soil including stem, stump, branches, bark, seeds and foliage.

[304] Report: “The State of the World’s Forests 2018—Forest Pathways to Sustainable Development.” United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2018. <www.fao.org>

Page 61:

[305] Report: “The State of the World’s Forests 2022: Forest Pathways for Green Recovery and Building Inclusive, Resilient and Sustainable Economies.” United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2022. <www.fao.org>

Page 7:

According to the definition used in FAO’s [United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization] Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA), deforestation is “the conversion of forest to other land use independently of whether human-induced or not”.² That is, deforestation is essentially referring to a change in land use, not in tree cover. Defining deforestation thus implies a definition of forest, which, in the FRA, combines physical criteria (minimum thresholds of 10 percent canopy cover, 0.5 [1.2 acres] ha in area and 5 m [16.4 feet] in height) and a notion of the predominant land use, excluding tree-covered areas where the predominant use is agriculture or urban; hence, the definition excludes plantations of agricultural tree crops (such as oil-palm plantations and orchards) as well as urban parks but includes various types of planted forests (including rubber plantations).³ Nevertheless, many technical and scientific studies do not use FAO’s definition but rather equate deforestation with tree-cover loss without taking land-use criteria into account. This approximation is used in remote-sensing-based methodologies for two reasons – it considers all tree cover (including tree-covered areas not meeting FAO’s forest definition); and it counts instances of non-permanent tree-cover loss (e.g. the clearfelling of a natural or planted forest that will later regrow, and the temporary consequences of a forest fire) as deforestation. When interpreting deforestation figures in different studies, therefore, users should be aware of the impacts of the definitions and tools used. …

Other wooded land. Worldwide, the area of other wooded land was estimated at 977 million ha in 2020, which was 7 percent of the total land area (and about one-quarter the area of the global forest area). …

Recent estimates based on FAO’s latest remote sensing survey suggest that the global area of other wooded land may be significantly higher than reported to FRA 2020.⁵

Other land with tree cover. Other land with tree cover has four subcategories: 1) trees in urban settings; 2) tree orchards; 3) palms; and 4) agroforestry (Figure 2). The area of palms more than doubled between 1990 and 2020, from 4.2 million ha to 9.3 million ha, based on the 83 countries that reported. Seventy-one countries and territories worldwide reported a total area of 45.4 million ha of agroforestry in 2020, mostly in Asia (31.2 million ha) and Africa (12.8 million ha) (there was also an estimated 1.28 million ha of agroforestry in North and Central America). In the 54 countries and territories that reported trend data on agroforestry, the area of land subject to this use increased by 4.21 million ha between 1990 and 2020, to 43.3 million ha. Most of the increase was in Asia and Africa.⁶ Note, however, that estimates based on FAO’s latest remote sensing survey suggest that the global area of other land with tree cover may be significantly higher than reported to FRA 2020.

[306] Report: “Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020: Terms and Definitions.” United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, February 14, 2018. <www.fao.org>

Page 4:

Forest

Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ [situated in the original place]. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban land use.

Explanatory notes

1. Forest is determined both by the presence of trees and the absence of other predominant land uses. The trees should be able to reach a minimum height of 5 meters in situ.

2. Includes areas with young trees that have not yet reached but which are expected to reach a canopy cover of 10 percent and tree height of 5 meters. It also includes areas that are temporarily unstocked due to clear-cutting as part of a forest management practice or natural disasters, and which are expected to be regenerated within 5 years. Local conditions may, in exceptional cases, justify that a longer time frame is used.

3. Includes forest roads, firebreaks and other small open areas; forest in national parks, nature reserves and other protected areas such as those of specific environmental, scientific, historical, cultural or spiritual interest.

4. Includes windbreaks, shelterbelts and corridors of trees with an area of more than 0.5 hectares and width of more than 20 meters.

5. Includes abandoned shifting cultivation land with a regeneration of trees that have, or are expected to reach, a canopy cover of 10 percent and tree height of 5 meters.

6. Includes areas with mangroves in tidal zones, regardless whether this area is classified as land area or not.

7. Includes rubber-wood, cork oak and Christmas tree plantations.

8. Includes areas with bamboo and palms provided that land use, height and canopy cover criteria are met.

9. Includes areas outside the legally designated forest land which meet the definition of “forest”.

10. Excludes tree stands in agricultural production systems, such as fruit tree plantations, oil palm plantations, olive orchards and agroforestry systems when crops are grown under tree cover. Note: Some agroforestry systems such as the “Taungya” system where crops are grown only during the first years of the forest rotation should be classified as forest.

[307] Calculated with data from the paper: “Global Land Change From 1982 to 2016.” By Xiao-Peng Song and others. Nature, August 30, 2018. Pages 639–651. <www.nature.com>

Page 639:

Land change is a cause and consequence of global environmental change.^1,2 Changes in land use and land cover considerably alter the Earth’s energy balance and biogeochemical cycles, which contributes to climate change and—in turn—affects land surface properties and the provision of ecosystem services.^1–4 However, quantification of global land change is lacking. Here we analyse 35 years’ worth of satellite data and provide a comprehensive record of global land-change dynamics during the period 1982–2016. We show that—contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally⁵—tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km² (+7.1% relative to the 1982 level). This overall net gain is the result of a net loss in the tropics being outweighed by a net gain in the extratropics.

The total area of tree cover increased by 2.24 million km² from 1982 to 2016 (90% confidence interval (CI): 0.93, 3.42 million km²), which represents a +7.1% change relative to 1982 tree cover….

Page 650: “Extended Data Table 1. Estimates of 1982 Land-Cover Area and 1982–2016 Land-Cover Change at Continental and Global Scales … Tree Canopy Cover … Area 1982 (10³ km²) … Global [=] 31,628”

CALCULATIONS:

• 0.93 million km² increase / 31.63 million km² tree cover in 1982 = 2.9%
• 3.42 million km² increase / 31.63 million km² tree cover in 1982 = 10.8%

[308] Article: “How It Might Be: Species.” By Sandra Henderson. EPA Journal, January/February 1989. Pages 21–22. <nepis.epa.gov>

Page 21:

Grizzly bears, elk, peregrine falcons, California condors, rainbow trout, monarch butterflies: the inventory of species that provide beauty and function in our ecosystems seems endless. Yet scientists are warning of a possible loss of 20 percent of the earth’s species before the end of the century—a rate of species destruction greater than any since the mass extinctions of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

A major factor in this modern species extinction may be our alteration of the earth’s climate: global warming due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases. As a result of the Greenhouse Effect, animal life is likely to be affected by several processes: shifting climatic zones. changes in vegetation zones, rising sea level, and increased frequency of natural catastrophic events.

Page 22: “Henderson is a biogeographer at EPA’s Environmental Research Laboratory in Corvallis, Oregon.”

[309] Paper: “How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?” By Camilo Mora and others. PLoS Biology, August 23, 2011. <journals.plos.org>

Abstract:

The diversity of life is one of the most striking aspects of our planet; hence knowing how many species inhabit Earth is among the most fundamental questions in science. Yet the answer to this question remains enigmatic, as efforts to sample the world’s biodiversity to date have been limited and thus have precluded direct quantification of global species richness, and because indirect estimates rely on assumptions that have proven highly controversial. Here we show that the higher taxonomic classification of species (i.e., the assignment of species to phylum, class, order, family, and genus) follows a consistent and predictable pattern from which the total number of species in a taxonomic group can be estimated. This approach was validated against well-known taxa, and when applied to all domains of life, it predicts ∼8.7 million (±1.3 million SE) eukaryotic species globally, of which ∼2.2 million (±0.18 million SE) are marine. In spite of 250 years of taxonomic classification and over 1.2 million species already catalogued in a central database, our results suggest that some 86% of existing species on Earth and 91% of species in the ocean still await description.

[310] CALCULATION: 1,200,000 × 0.2 = 240,000

[311] Book: 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: A Global Species Assessment. Edited by Jonathan E.M. Baillie, Craig Hilton-Taylor, and Simon N. Stuart. World Conservation Union, 2004. <portals.iucn.org>

Page 46:

At least 27 species are recorded as having become Extinct or Extinct in the Wild during the last 20 years (1984–2004) (Tables 3.2 and 3.3). Inherent in identifying very recent extinctions is the problem of extinctions not being included because they are not yet confirmed. For example, eight species of birds are thought to have become Extinct or Extinct in the Wild over the past 20 years, but they are not included, as further research is needed prove the last individual has died (Box 3.2).

[312] Paper: “Historical Bird and Terrestrial Mammal Extinction Rates and Causes.” By Craig Loehle and Willis Eschenbach. Diversity and Distributions, October 13, 2011. Pages 84–91. <onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 84: “Only six continental birds and three continental mammals were recorded in standard databases as going extinct since 1500 compared to 123 bird species and 58 mammal species on islands.”

Page 87:

We can also evaluate continental extinction rates relative to the species pool. The three extinct mammals represent approximately 0.08% of the continental species pool. Even if we assume that all three went extinct in the past 100 years (vs. 500 years), it would take, at this rate, 1,235 years for 1% of continental mammals to go extinct. Similarly for birds, the six species represent 0.062% of the 9,672 species pool and it would take 1,613 years to lose 1% of extant species at current rates even if the recorded extinctions all took place over the last 100 years.

Page 88:

Habitat loss has, of course, played a role in the extinction of some continental species. However, it is worth noting that to date, no continental mammal or bird in our databases has been documented to have gone extinct solely because of habitat reduction. …

Our results do not support statements or projections by others of grossly elevated extinction rates for continental bird and mammal fauna over the last 500 years compared with background rates.

[313] Paper: “Marine Defaunation: Animal Loss in the Global Ocean.” By Douglas J. McCauley and others. Science, January 16, 2015. Pages 1255641-1–1255641-7. <www.sciencemag.org>

Page 1255641-1: “The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) records only 15 global extinctions of marine animal species in the past 514 years (i.e., limit of IUCN temporal coverage) and none in the past five decades.^{8, 9}”

NOTE: The paper projects that mankind is going to cause “a major extinction” of marine animals. This article from Just Facts shows how that forecast is based on misleading claims and is inconsistent with the documented facts of this matter.

[314] Article: “The Cooling World.” By Peter Gwynne. Newsweek, April 28, 1975. <www.washingtontimes.com>

The Cooling World

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production—with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. …

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. …

… Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. …

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. … The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

[315] Calculated with data from the report: “World Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030 – An FAO Perspective.” Edited by Jelle Bruinsma. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2003. <www.fao.org>

Page 29:

Food consumption, in terms of kcal/person/day,† is the key variable used for measuring and evaluating the evolution of the world food situation.¹ The world has made significant progress in raising food consumption per person. It increased from an average of 2,360 kcal/person/day in the mid-1960s to 2,800 kcal/person/day currently (Table 2.1). This growth was accompanied by significant structural change. Diets shifted towards more livestock products, vegetable oils, etc. and away from staples such as roots and tubers (Tables 2.7, 2.8). The increase in world average kcal/person/ day would have been even higher but for the declines in the transition economies in the 1990s.

¹ The more correct term for this variable would be “national average apparent food consumption,” since the data come from the national food balance sheets rather than from consumption surveys. The term “food consumption” is used in this sense here and in other chapters.

Data extracted from pages 30–31:

Table 2.1. Per capita food consumption (kcal/person/day) …

Figure 2.1. Per capita food consumption, developing countries with over 100 million population in 1997/99 …

Table 2.2. Population Living in Countries with Given Per Capita Food Consumption

NOTES:

• † What people commonly call a “calorie” is actually 1,000 calories or a kilocalorie (kcal).
• ‡ Calculated by Just Facts.

[316] Calculated with the dataset: “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Record from the South Pole.” By R.F. Keeling and others, 2008. Data provided in “Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change” by the U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center. <cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov>

NOTES:

• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.
• Because regional CO2 concentrations vary by less than 10 parts per million over the globe, local records (such as the one used to make this calculation) are globally representative.

[317] Calculated with:

a) Dataset: “Land-Ocean: Global Means.” NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <data.giss.nasa.gov>

b) Webpage: “GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v4).” NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <data.giss.nasa.gov>

“The GISS [Goddard Institute for Space Studies] Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v4) is an estimate of global surface temperature change. … The following are … temperature anomalies, i.e. deviations from the corresponding 1951–1980 means.”

NOTE: An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[318] Article: “Growth Is Not Enough.” By George Wehrfritz. Newsweek, April 29, 2007. <www.newsweek.com>

“Similarly, China’s toxic rivers, smog, mass migrations and serious food shortages due to global warming all suggest that Asia’s ‘grow first, clean up later’ mentality is out of step with the gravity of the environmental challenge the region as a whole now faces.”

[319] Article: “McKinsey: Cutting Carbon Won’t Cost Much.” By Diana Farrell. Newsweek, November 14, 2008. <www.newsweek.com>

“Likewise, to avoid the potential nightmares of global warming, such as mass migrations from flooded cities and starvation due to drought, the scientific consensus is we need to cut carbon emissions by at least 50 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.”

[320] Dataset: “Prevalence of Undernourishment (% of Population).” World Bank, March 21, 2023. Accessed May 9, 2023 at <data.worldbank.org>

Prevalence of undernourishments is the percentage of the population whose habitual food consumption is insufficient to provide the dietary energy levels that are required to maintain a normal active and healthy life. Data showing as 2.5 may signify a prevalence of undernourishment below 2.5% …

Limitations and Exceptions: From a policy and program standpoint, this measure has its limits. First, food insecurity exists even where food availability is not a problem because of inadequate access of poor households to food. Second, food insecurity is an individual or household phenomenon, and the average food available to each person, even corrected for possible effects of low income, is not a good predictor of food insecurity among the population. And third, nutrition security is determined not only by food security but also by the quality of care of mothers and children and the quality of the household’s health environment (Smith and Haddad 2000). …

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Data on undernourishment are from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and measure food deprivation based on average food available for human consumption per person, the level of inequality in access to food, and the minimum calories required for an average person.

NOTE: In 2021, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization changed its methodology for measuring undernourishment, resulting in significantly different results. The next three footnotes document the previous data and the reason for the UN’s changes.

[321] Dataset: “Food Security Indicators.” United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, October 9, 2019. <www.fao.org>

[322] Report: “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World: Transforming Food Systems for Affordable Healthy Diets.” United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, October 5, 2020. Updated 10/15/21. <www.fao.org>

Pages 5–7:

Updated Information for China Improves the Accuracy of Global Hunger Estimates

Revising parameters to estimate the PoU [Prevalence of Undernourishment] is standard procedure, conducted annually as more data become available. … This year has been rich in updates, including revision of the crucial parameter of inequality in food consumption for 13 countries, among them some of the world’s most populous. As highlighted in previous editions, particularly problematic until this year had been access to more recent data to revise the parameter of inequality in food consumption for China. …

This year FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] obtained data from two surveys in China that could be used to update the PoU estimates. The first is the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS)** conducted from 1990 to 2011, covering 12 provincial-level administrative regions of China. The second is the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS),*** which covers 28 out of 34 provincial-level administrative regions of China, and was conducted every two years from 2011 to 2017. With these data it was possible to update the information on inequality of dietary energy consumption across the Chinese population and, consequently, the estimates of the PoU for China, and to revise the whole series back to 2000 for consistency. …

The result was a substantial downward shift of the entire series of global hunger numbers, as depicted in Figure A. …

** CHNS is collected by the National Institute for Nutrition and Health (NINH), former National Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety, at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC) and the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

*** CHFS is collected by the Survey and Research Center for China Household Finance of the Research Institute of Economics and Management at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, Sichuan, China.

Page 13:

As this process usually implies backward revisions of the entire series, readers must avoid comparing PoU series across different editions of this report. They should always refer to the most current report, including for past values. This is especially important this year, given the significant downward revision of the series of PoU estimates resulting from the updated PoU for China….

[323] Working paper: “Methodological Note on New Estimates of the Prevalence of Undernourishment in China.” By Carlo Cafiero, Juan Feng, and Adeeba Ishaq. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, July 17, 2020. <www.fao.org>

Pages 1–2:

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) in all countries and regions of the world by assuming a probabilistic model for the distribution of the per capita levels of habitual dietary energy consumption in the population. The distribution is characterized in terms of the average (the mean dietary energy consumption in the population) and the coefficient of variation (CV, which is a measure of inequality in food consumption level within the population). As differences in observed food consumption of different people may also reflect differences in dietary energy requirement due to sex, age, body mass and physical activity levels, the key parameter to determine the extent of undernourishment is the coefficient of variation (CV|y) that can be traced back to differences in the households’ socio-economic characteristics that are independent of sex, age, body mass and physical activity of their members.

For mainland China, the last time the CV|y was estimated directly from official survey data was in 1999, in preparation for the first edition of The State of Food Insecurity in the World (SOFI) report. Later, lack of access to the needed data prevented updates and the parameter has been kept constant since then. As a result, FAO’s current assessments of the PoU for China do not reflect possible changes in food consumption inequality within its population since 1999, and therefore may be inaccurate. Such changes may have occurred as a consequence of the likely increases in the levels of dietary energy intake for the poorer strata of the Chinese population due to the rapid, intense economic growth in the country over the last two and a half decades. …

To pursue such strategy, we use data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS – a fuller description is provided further below), which covers 28 provinces and municipalities with samples that are designed to be representative of the population of mainland China and is available for the years 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017. The data are used to estimate average monthly food expenditures for households belonging to different income decile groups. By contrasting these to the findings from the analysis of the CHNS [China Health and Nutrition Survey] data, we empirically validate the relation that exists between average food expenditure and average dietary energy consumption in 2011 and use it to predict average dietary energy consumption levels by income decile in China. These predictions are used to estimate the CV|y in 2013, 2015 and 2017, which is in turn used to update the estimates of the PoU.

Page 8:

Our strategy is to link habitual food consumption, measured in terms of equivalent dietary energy intake, to average monthly food expenditure, measured in real monetary terms, for the provinces and income deciles where it is possible to characterize both variables, and then to exploit data on food expenditure available for all provinces and income deciles from the CHFS to predict the average apparent dietary energy consumption by income decile in the provinces not covered by the CHNS in 2011, and in all provinces of mainland China in 2013, 2015 and 2017.

Equipped with this relationship, we predict levels of DEC [dietary energy consumption] for all income decile groups in all the provinces and years (2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017) for which the CHFS provides data on FOOD_EXP [food expenditures].

Page 13:

Figure 4 Prevalence of undernourishment in mainland China, before and after the revision of the CV|y

[324] Dataset: “Depth of the Food Deficit (Kilocalories Per Person Per Day).” World Bank, June 28, 2018. <data.worldbank.org>

The depth of the food deficit indicates how many calories would be needed to lift the undernourished from their status, everything else being constant. The average intensity of food deprivation of the undernourished, estimated as the difference between the average dietary energy requirement and the average dietary energy consumption of the undernourished population (food-deprived), is multiplied by the number of undernourished to provide an estimate of the total food deficit in the country, which is then normalized by the total population.

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization, Food Security Statistics. …

Aggregation Method: Weighted average

Development Relevance: The prevalence of undernourishment indicator provides only a partial picture of the food security situation. Recognizing this, FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations] has compiled a preliminary set of food security indicators, available for most countries and years, to contribute to a more comprehensive assessment of the multiple dimensions and manifestations of food insecurity and to effective policies for more effective interventions and responses.

Long Definition: The depth of the food deficit indicates how many calories would be needed to lift the undernourished from their status, everything else being constant. The average intensity of food deprivation of the undernourished, estimated as the difference between the average dietary energy requirement and the average dietary energy consumption of the undernourished population (food-deprived), is multiplied by the number of undernourished to provide an estimate of the total food deficit in the country, which is then normalized by the total population.

Periodicity: Annual

Statistical Concept and Methodology: The indicator is calculated as an average over 3 years.

NOTES: As of May 2023, this is the latest available data from the World Bank or the Food and Agriculture Organization.

[325] Article: “With a Global Focus.” By William H. Mansfield III. EPA Journal, January/February 1989. Pages 37–39. <nepis.epa.gov>

Page 37:

“Global warming may be the greatest challenge facing humankind,” according to Dr. Mostafa K. Tolba, Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and Under Secretary General of the United Nations. Indeed, the mounting concern about climate change impacts has sent storm warning flags aloft in the United Nations….

Food supplies and forests would be adversely affected. Changes in rainfall patterns would disrupt agriculture. Warmer temperatures would shift grain-growing regions polewards. …

… The natural systems—both plant and animal—will be less able than man to cope and adapt. Any change of temperature, rainfall, and sea level of the magnitude now anticipated will be destructive to natural systems and living things and hence to man as well.

Page 39: “Mansfield is Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

[326] Report: “The Future of Food and Agriculture: Trends and Challenges.” United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization, 2017. <www.fao.org>

Page 85:

With the increases in food supply in recent decades, the world now produces more than enough food to satisfy the dietary needs of the entire global population. The average DES [dietary energy supply] per person per day in low- and middle-income countries is around 2,750 kilocalories and in high-income countries it is around 3,350 kilocalories. Both these figures exceed the minimum requirement of around 1,950 kilocalories per person per day….⁶ The same applies to protein requirements.⁷

However, adequate food availability does not automatically imply adequate food intake by all. First, inequality in incomes and other means of subsistence explain large differences in access to food and why still hundreds of millions of people are undernourished. Second, poorer households tend to face impediments to the adequate utilization of food owing to lack of access to facilities, such as food storage, cooking equipment and clean water, and to services, such as health care and basic nutrition education. Third, the dietary transition is partially reflected in improved access to more nutritious foods, including meat, dairy products, fruits and vegetables, but not necessary in the right balance. Analyses based on household surveys, as well as the trends shown above based on the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] food balance sheets, suggest accelerated growth in consumption of meat and slower growth in consumption of fruits and vegetables.⁸ This trend, together with rapidly growing consumption of processed foods, often with excessive quantities of salt, sugar, and preservatives, has given rise to concerns over the shift towards less healthy diets and the increasing prevalence of micronutrient deficiency and overweight.

[327] Constructed with the report: “Statistical Yearbook: World Food and Agriculture 2022.” Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 2022. <www.fao.org>

Page 275: “Table 42. Average Dietary Energy Supply (kcal per capita per day)”

[328] Paper: “Low Sea Level Rise Projections From Mountain Glaciers and Icecaps Under Global Warming.” By Sarah C. B. Raper and Roger J. Braithwaite. Nature, January 16, 2006. <www.nature.com>

“The largest contributions to sea level rise are estimated to come from thermal expansion (0.288 m) and the melting of mountain glaciers and icecaps (0.106 m), with smaller inputs from Greenland (0.024 m) and Antarctica (–0.074 m).¹”

[329] Paper: “Recent Loss of Floating Ice and the Consequent Sea Level Contribution.” By Andrew Shepherd and others. Geophysical Research Letters, July 2010. <discovery.ucl.ac.uk>

Page 1:

Altogether, 746 ± 127 km3 yr⁻¹ of floating ice was lost between 1994 and 2004, a value that exceeds considerably the reduction in grounded ice over the same period. Although the losses are equivalent to a small (49 ± 8 μm yr⁻¹) rise in mean sea level….

The melting of floating ice contributes to the rate at which global sea level changes due to differences in the density and temperature of fresh- and sea-water [Jenkins and Holland, 2007]. If ice is added to an ocean, there is an initial rise in sea level equal to the volume of displaced water. As the ice melts, the ocean freshens and cools and, according to the rates at which these opposing processes take place, a concommital change in ocean volume occurs.

Page 4: “Today, the steric change in global sea level associated with trends in floating ice mass amounts to just 1.6% of the measured rate of sea level rise (3.1 ± 0.7 mm yr⁻¹ [Bindoff and others, 2007] and is considerably smaller than contributions due to other components of the cryosphere [Lemke and others, 2007] or thermal expansion of the oceans [Bindoff and others, 2007].”

[330] For the reason described in the New York Times article below, it is commonly believed that melting sea ice does not contribute to sea level changes, but as explained in the footnote above, melting sea ice can influence sea level “due to differences in the density and temperature of fresh- and sea-water.” However, at the current estimated rate (49 ± 8 μm yr⁻¹), it would take 446 to 620 years for this phenomena to raise sea level by one inch.

CALCULATIONS:

• 25,400 μm/inch × (year/(49+8 μm)) = 446 years/inch
• 25,400 μm/inch × (year/(49–8 μm)) = 620 years/inch

Article: “Frozen Key to Our Climate: The World’s Ice Masses May Be Ushering in a Fifth Ice Age.” By Leonard Engel. New York Times, December 7, 1958. <www.nytimes.com>

[T]he break-up of the floating Artic ice … would not alter sea levels by a single millimeter because, when floating ice melts, it takes up only the space formerly occupied by its submerged part. (A simple demonstration proves this: Put ice cubes in a glass until they reach little higher than the brim, then fill the glass with water exactly to the brim. There will be no change in water level and no overflow as the ice melts.)

[331] Article: “The Uncertainties of Global Warming: Sea Level Could Rise in South, Fall in North.” By Gerald Traufette (translated from the German by Christopher Sultan). Der Spiegel, December 2, 2010. <www.spiegel.de>

Stammer, who is the director of the Center for Marine and Climate Research at the University of Hamburg, is familiar with the incorrect notions that lay people have, which is why he likes to present them with two numbers to shatter their illusions. “In the Indian Ocean, the sea level is about 100 meters (330 feet) below the average, while the waters around Iceland are 60 meters above the average.” …

… Regional effects, on the other hand, are partly influenced by winds and currents, with gravity and the laws of thermodynamics also playing an important role. …

… [I]n late December 1992 … a satellite was placed into service that uses a radar altimeter to measure the sea level, to within a few centimeters, anywhere in the oceans. …

… [W]hile seas have risen by about 15 centimeters [5.9”] in the tropical Western Pacific, the ocean near San Francisco has fallen by about the same amount.”

[332] Paper: “Patterns of Indian Ocean Sea-Level Change in a Warming Climate.” By Weiqing Han and others. Nature Geoscience, July 11, 2010. Pages 546–550. <apps.dtic.mil>

Pages 546–547:

Global sea level has risen during the past decades as a result of thermal expansion of the warming ocean and freshwater addition from melting continental ice.¹ However, sea-level rise is not globally uniform.^1–5 Regional sea levels can be affected by changes in atmospheric or oceanic circulation. As long-term observational records are scarce, regional changes in sea level in the Indian Ocean are poorly constrained. Yet estimates of future sea-level changes are essential for effective risk assessment.² Here we combine in situ and satellite observations of Indian Ocean sea level with climate-model simulations, to identify a distinct spatial pattern of sea-level rise since the 1960s. We find that sea level has decreased substantially in the south tropical Indian Ocean whereas it has increased elsewhere. This pattern is driven by changing surface winds associated with a combined invigoration of the Indian Ocean Hadley and Walker cells, patterns of atmospheric overturning circulation in the north–south and east–west direction, respectively, which is partly attributable to rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. We conclude that—if ongoing anthropogenic warming dominates natural variability—the pattern we detected is likely to persist and to increase the environmental stress on some coasts and islands in the Indian Ocean. …

Time series of sea level from HYCOM [Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model] averaged in four representative regions show persistent trends of sea-level fall and rise, and they are not caused by a jump in 1976/1977 when Pacific climate shift occurred. However, the sea-level fall in region A rebounds over the past decade (Fig. 2). They agree well with satellite altimeter data¹³ from 1993 to 2008. Sea-level trends for this shorter period do differ markedly from that of 1961 to 2008 (Fig. 2A), as might be expected from natural decadal variability. This is why much longer records are needed to detect anthropogenic sea-level change.¹⁴

[333] Paper: “Recent Global Sea Level Acceleration Started Over 200 Years Ago?” By S. Jevrejeva and others. Geophysical Research Letters, April 30, 2008. <onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 1: “We present a reconstruction of global sea level (GSL) since 1700 calculated from tide gauge records and analyse the evolution of global sea level acceleration during the past 300 years.”

[334] Webpage: “Tide Gauge Sea Level.” University of Colorado, Sea Level Research Group. Edited May 17, 2011. <sealevel.colorado.edu>

“Traditionally, global sea level change has been estimated from tide gauge measurements collected over the last century. Tide gauges, usually placed on piers, measure the sea level relative to a nearby geodetic [land-based] benchmark. … Although the global network of tide gauges comprises of a poorly distributed sea level measurement system, it offers the only source of historical, precise, long-term sea level data.”

[335] Paper: “Recent Global Sea Level Acceleration Started Over 200 Years Ago?” By S. Jevrejeva and others. Geophysical Research Letters, April 30, 2008. <onlinelibrary.wiley.com>

Page 1:

We present a reconstruction of global sea level (GSL) since 1700 calculated from tide gauge records and analyse the evolution of global sea level acceleration during the past 300 years. We provide observational evidence that sea level acceleration up to the present … appears to have started at the end of the 18th century. Sea level rose by 6 cm during the 19th century and 19 cm in the 20th century. … All data sets were corrected for local datum changes and glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) of the solid Earth [Peltier, 2001].

Page 2: “We calculate an acceleration … by fitting a second order polynomial fit to the extended GSL (Figure 1) for the period 1700–2003. The sea level acceleration … appears to have started at the end of the 18th century, although a significant increase does not occur until much later in the 19th century.”

NOTES:

• Dataset available at <www.psmsl.org>
• Credit for bringing this dataset to attention belongs to Joanne Nova [Commentary: “It Wasn’t CO2: Global Sea Levels Started Rising Before 1800.” JoNova, July 26th, 2011. <joannenova.com.au>].
• In keeping with Just Facts’ Standards of Credibility, we are “giving preferentiality to figures that are contrary to our viewpoints” and “using the most cautious plausible interpretations of such data.” Thus, we use a 10-year moving average trend line to visually determine the start of the sea level rise (≈ 1860) instead of a second order polynomial fit as the authors did. Applying the date given by the authors (≈ 1800), the sea level rise began more than 100 years before surface temperatures began to rise in 1907 (see next footnote).

[336] Year surface temperatures began to rise determined with:

a) Dataset: “Land-Ocean: Global Means.” NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <data.giss.nasa.gov>

b) Webpage: “GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v4).” NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Accessed May 4, 2023 at <data.giss.nasa.gov>

“The GISS [Goddard Institute for Space Studies] Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v4) is an estimate of global surface temperature change. Graphs and tables are updated around the middle of every month using current data files from NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] GHCN [Global Historical Climatology Network] v4 (meteorological stations), and ERSST [Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature] v5 (ocean areas)…. The following are … temperature anomalies, i.e. deviations from the corresponding 1951–1980 means.”

NOTES:

• This data is graphed below. Visually, 1907 marks the start of the temperature increase, although one could also argue that the increase began in earnest in 1917, in which case, the sea level increase began about 55 years before surface temperatures began to rise.
• The Climatic Research Unit data extends back a little further in time to 1850, and like the NASA data, it shows no increasing trend until about 1910.

CALCULATION: 1907 (year surface temperatures began to rise) – 1860 (year sea level began to rise) = 47 years

[337] Calculated with data from:

a) The facts above documenting that natural processes emit 770 billion metric tons of CO2 per year.

b) Dataset: “2022 Global Budget 2022 v1.0.” <www.icos-cp.eu>

Tab: “Fossil Emissions by Category … Fossil Fuel and Cement Production Emissions by Fuel Type … All values in million tonnes of carbon per year (MtC/yr) … 1MtC = 1 million tonne of carbon = 3.664 million tonnes of CO2 … MtC/yr … Year … 1956 … Fossil Emissions Excluding Carbonation [=] 2,162.73 [Total fossil emissions include: Coal, Oil, Gas, Cement Emission, Flaring and Other]”

CALCULATIONS:

• 770 billion tons of natural CO2 emitted per year / 3.664 molecular weight of CO2/carbon = 210 billion metric tons of carbon
• 1% of 210 billion metric tons of carbon = 2,100 million metric tons of carbon
• 1956 (the first year man-made emissions of CO2 reached 1% of natural emissions) – 1860 (year sea level began to rise) = 96 years

[338] Calculated with data from the paper: “Sea-Level Acceleration Based on U.S. Tide Gauges and Extensions of Previous Global-Gauge Analyses.” By J.R. Houston and R.G. Dean. Journal of Coastal Research, February 23, 2011. Pages 409–417. <www.jcronline.org>

Page 409:

Without sea-level acceleration, the 20th-century sea-level trend of 1.7 mm/y would produce a rise of only approximately 0.15 m [5.9 in.] from 2010 to 2100.…

In the Fourth Assessment Report (4AR) [2007] of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Bindoff and others (2007) project a global sea-level rise relative to 1990 of 18–59 cm [7–23 in.] by 2100 and add as much as 0.20 cm† to the upper limit if melting of ice sheets increases in proportion to global average surface temperature increases (Meehl and others, 2007).

† NOTE: This unit was transcribed improperly and should be meters instead of centimeters. Just Facts has notified the authors of the paper about the error.

CALCULATIONS:

• (100 years × 1.7 mm/year trend of the 20^th century) = 170 mm [6.7 in] sea level rise over the 21st century
• 59 cm upper bound of projections + (0.2 m added ice sheet melting × 100 cm/m) = 79 cm [31.1 in]

[339] Report: “The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.” Edited by Hans-Otto Pörtner and others. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, November 29, 2021. Updated 1/26/2022. <www.ipcc.ch>

Chapter 4: “Sea Level Rise and Implications for Low Lying Islands, Coasts and Communities.” By Michael Oppenheimer and others. Pages 321–445. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 323:

Global mean sea level (GMSL) is rising (virtually certain¹) and accelerating (high confidence²). The sum of glacier and ice sheet contributions is now the dominant source of GMSL rise (very high confidence). GMSL from tide gauges and altimetry observations increased from 1.4 mm yr^–1 over the period 1901–1990 to 2.1 mm yr^–1 over the period 1970–2015 to 3.2 mm yr^–1 over the period 1993–2015 to 3.6 mm yr^–1 over the period 2006–2015 (high confidence). The dominant cause of GMSL rise since 1970 is anthropogenic forcing (high confidence)….

Page 324: “SLR [sea level rise] at the end of the century is projected to be faster under all scenarios, including those compatible with achieving the long-term temperature goal set out in the Paris Agreement. GMSL will rise between 0.43 m (0.29–0.59 m, likely range; RCP2.6) and 0.84 m (0.61–1.10 m, likely range; RCP8.5) by 2100 (medium confidence) relative to 1986–2005.”

[340] Report: “Changing Climate and the Coast, Volume 1: Adaptive Responses and Their Economic, Environmental, and Institutional Implications.” Edited by James G. Titus. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and United Nations Environment Program, May 1990. <nepis.epa.gov>

Page iii:

Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other gases released by human activities are expected to warm the Earth by a mechanism commonly known as the “greenhouse effect.” Such a warming could raise the level of the oceans and thereby inundate low-lying areas, erode beaches, exacerbate coastal flooding, and increase the salinity of estuaries and aquifers. …

… This report presents the findings of a conference held in Miami from November 27 to December 1 on the under the auspices of the Coastal Management Subgroup of the IPCC’s [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s] Response Strategies Working Group. The Miami conference focused on the implications of sea level rise for Western Africa, the Americas, the Mediterranean Basin, and the rest of Europe; a second conference held in Perth, Australia addressed the other half of the world.

Page 3: “[T]here is a growing consensus among scientists that the atmospheric buildup of greenhouse gases could change global climate and accelerate the rate of sea level rise, which would place further stress on coastal zones. Loss of lives, deterioration of the environment, and undesirable social and economic dislocation may become unavoidable.”

Page 5:

Tidal gauge records show that global sea level has been rising l to 2 millimeters per year over the last century. However, according to IPCC Working Group I, models of the climate, oceans, and cryosphere suggest that sea level could rise 4 to 6 millimeters per year on average through the year 2050 for a total rise of 25 to 40 centimeters. The accelerated rise would be due principally to thermal expansion of the oceans and melting of small mountain glaciers.

[341] Paper: “A 20th Century Acceleration in Global Sea-Level Rise.” By John A. Church and Neil J. White. Geophysical Research Letters, January 6, 2006. <citeseerx.ist.psu.edu>

Page 1:

Multi-century sea-level records and climate models indicate an acceleration of sea-level rise, but no 20th century acceleration has previously been detected. A reconstruction of global sea level using tide-gauge data from 1950 to 2000 indicates a larger rate of rise after 1993 and other periods of rapid sea-level rise but no significant acceleration over this period. Here, we extend the reconstruction of global mean sea level back to 1870 and find a sea-level rise from January 1870 to December 2004 of 195 mm, a 20th century rate of sea-level rise of 1.7 ± 0.3 mm yr^-1 [per year] and a significant acceleration of sea-level rise of 0.013 ± 0.006 mm ^yr–2 [per year squared]. This acceleration is an important confirmation of climate change simulations which show an acceleration not previously observed. If this acceleration remained constant then the 1990 to 2100 rise would range from 280 to 340 mm, consistent with projections in the IPCC TAR [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Annual Report, 2007].

[342] Paper: “Sea-Level Acceleration Based on U.S. Tide Gauges and Extensions of Previous Global-Gauge Analyses.” By J.R. Houston and R.G. Dean. Journal of Coastal Research, February 23, 2011. Pages 409–417. <www.jcronline.org>

Page 414:

We analyzed the complete records of 57 U.S. tide gauges that had average record lengths of 82 years and records from 1930 to 2010 for 25 gauges, and we obtained small decelerations of −0.0014 and −0.0123 mm/y², respectively. We obtained similar decelerations using worldwide-gauge records in the original data set of Church and White (2006) and a 2009 revision (for the periods of 1930–2001 and 1930–2007) and by extending Douglas’s (1992) analyses of worldwide gauges by 25 years.

Page 416: “Our analyses do not indicate acceleration in sea level in U.S. tide gauge records during the 20th century. Instead, for each time period we consider, the records show small decelerations that are consistent with a number of earlier studies of worldwide-gauge records.”

[343] Webpage: “Frequently Asked Questions: What Is the Definition of Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) and Its Rate?” University of Colorado, Sea Level Research Group. Accessed October 30, 2017 at <sealevel.colorado.edu>

The term “sea level” has many meanings depending upon the context. In satellite altimetry, the measurements are made … relative to the center of the Earth…. Tide gauges, on the other hand, measure sea level relative to the local land surface…. The satellite altimeter estimate of interest is the distance between the sea surface illuminated by the radar altimeter and the center of the Earth…. This distance is estimated by subtracting the measured distance between the satellite and sea surface (after correcting for many effects on the radar signal) from the very precise orbit of the satellite.

[344] Webpage: “Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry / Sea Level Rise.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry. Last modified March 16, 2020. <www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov>

The measurement of long-term changes in global mean sea level can provide an important corroboration of predictions by climate models of global warming. Satellite altimeter radar measurements can be combined with precisely known spacecraft orbits to measure sea level on a global basis with unprecedented accuracy. A series of satellite missions that started with TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) in 1992 and continued with Jason-1 (2001–2013), Jason-2 (2008–2019), and Jason-3 (2016–present) estimate global mean sea level every 10 days with an uncertainty of 3–4 mm.

Jason-3, launched 17 January 2016, is a joint effort between NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration], the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, France’s Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

The latest mean sea level time series and maps of regional sea level change can be found on this site.

[345] Calculated with data from:

a) Dataset: “Global Mean Sea Level Time Series (Seasonal Signals Removed), TOPEX and Jason-1, -2, -3.” NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry. Accessed May 9, 2023 at <www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov>

b) Dataset: “Global Mean Sea Level Time Series (Seasonal Signals Removed), Multiple Altimeters.” NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry. Accessed May 9, 2023 at <www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov>

NOTES:

• The mean sea level rise from the 1990s to the 2010s is calculated by subtracting the average of all data in the 1990s from the average of all data in the 2010s.
• An Excel file containing the data and calculations is available upon request.

[346] Article: “Scientific Survey Shows Voters Across the Political Spectrum Are Ideologically Deluded.” By James D. Agresti. Just Facts, April 16, 2021. <www.justfacts.com>

The survey was comprised of 21 questions posed to U.S. residents who regularly vote. It was conducted just after the 2020 presidential election by Triton Polling & Research, an academic research firm that applied scientific survey methods to optimize accuracy. …

The responses were obtained through live telephone surveys of 1,000 likely voters across the U.S. during November 4–11, 2020. This sample size is large enough to accurately represent the U.S. population. Likely voters are people who say they vote “every time there is an opportunity” or in “most” elections.

The margin of sampling error for all respondents is ±3% with at least 95% confidence. The margins of error for the subsets are 5% for Biden voters, 5% for Trump voters, 4% for males, 5% for females, 9% for 18 to 34 year olds, 4% for 35 to 64 year olds, and 5% for 65+ year olds.

NOTE: For facts about what constitutes a scientific survey and the factors that impact their accuracy, visit Just Facts’ research on Deconstructing Polls & Surveys.

[347] Dataset: “Just Facts’ 2020 U.S. Nationwide Survey.” Just Facts, April 2021. <www.justfacts.com>

Page 3:

Q14. In your view, are police more likely to use lethal force when arresting black people than white people?

Yes … Percent [=] 71.5

No … Percent [=] 17.6

Unsure … Percent [=] 10.6

Refused … Percent [=] 0.3

[348] Paper: “The Dynamic Response of Reef Islands to Sea Level Rise: Evidence from Multi-Decadal Analysis of Island Change in the Central Pacific.” By Arthur P. Webb and Paul S. Kench. Global and Planetary Change, June 2010. Pages 234–246. <www.sciencedirect.com>

Page 234:

Coral reef islands are low-lying accumulations of unconsolidated, or poorly lithified, carbonate sand and gravel deposited on coral reef platforms by the focusing effect of waves and currents (Stoddart and Steers, 1977). Coral reef islands are commonly found in barrier reef systems (for example Great Barrier Reef); open reef seas (for example Torres Strait) or in mid-ocean atolls. In atoll nations such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Maldives reef islands provide the only habitable area, which can carry very high population densities…. These low-lying reef islands and their populations are considered physically vulnerable to a range of climate change impacts including: sea-level rise; changing weather and oceanographic wave regimes, and increased cyclone frequency and intensity (Church and others, 2006; Mimura and others, 2007).

Under current scenarios of global climate-induced sea-level rise of 0.48 to 0.98m [19–39 inches] by 2100 it is widely anticipated that low-lying reef islands will become physically unstable and be unable to support human populations over the coming century (Leatherman, 1997; Connell, 1999). The most anticipated physical impacts of sea-level rise on islands are shoreline erosion, inundation, flooding, salinity intrusion, and reduced resilience of coastal ecosystems (Leatherman, 1997; Mimura, 1999; Khan and others, 2002; Yamano and others, 2007). It is also widely perceived that island erosion will become so widespread that entire atoll nations will disappear rendering their inhabitants among the first environmental refugees of climate change (Connell, 2003, 2004).

[349] Book: Encyclopedia of Coastal Science. Edited by Maurice L. Schwartz. Springer, 2005. Article: “Coral Reef Islands.” By Gisele Muller-Parker. Pages 342–343.

Page 342:

A coral reef island is composed of rocks from coral skeletons, that is, biologically formed calcium carbonate materials derived from the adjacent coral reef and raised above sea level. Coral reef island sizes range from a few square meters to many square kilometers, and they come in all shapes and proportions. Their soils consist of coral fragments, calcareous algae and other limestone detritus [gravel, sand, and silt], varied amount of humus, guano from sea birds, volcanic ash, and drifted pumice (Fosberg, 1976).

Most coral reef islands occur in the Indo-Pacific region. There are over 300 atolls [ring-shaped islands or chains of islands] and extensive barrier reefs in the Pacific ocean and only ten atolls and 2 barrier reefs in the Caribbean region (Milliman, 1973). The total number of coral reef islands is unknown, and varies according to change in sea level and storm activity.

[350] Video: “Tuvalu at Copenhagen: ‘The Fate Of My Country Rests In Your Hands.’ ” December 2009. <www.youtube.com>

[351] Paper: “Patterns of Island Change and Persistence Offer Alternate Adaptation Pathways for Atoll Nations.” By Paul S. Kench and others. Nature Communications, February 9, 2018. <www.nature.com>

Page 2:

Here we present the first comprehensive national-scale analysis of the transformation in physical land resources of the Pacific atoll nation Tuvalu, situated in the central western Pacific…. Comprising 9 atolls and 101 individual reef islands, the nation is home to 10,600 people, 50% of whom are located on the urban island of Fogafale, in Funafuti atoll. We specifically examine spatial differences in island behaviour, of all 101 islands in Tuvalu, over the past four decades (1971–2014), a period in which local sea level has risen at twice the global average…. Surprisingly, we show that all islands have changed and that the dominant mode of change has been island expansion, which has increased the land area of the nation. … [T]otal land area of the nation has expanded by 73.5 ha (2.9%) since 1971.

[352] Paper: “The Dynamic Response of Reef Islands to Sea Level Rise: Evidence from Multi-Decadal Analysis of Island Change in the Central Pacific.” By Arthur P. Webb and Paul S. Kench. Global and Planetary Change, June 2010. Pages 234–246. <www.sciencedirect.com>

Page 234: “Using historical aerial photography and satellite images this study presents the first quantitative analysis of physical changes in 27 atoll islands in the central Pacific over a 19 to 61 yr period. This period of analysis corresponds with instrumental records that show a rate of sea-level rise of 2.0 mm yr⁻¹ in the Pacific….”

Page 241:

The total change in area of reef islands (aggregated for all islands in the study) is an increase in land area of 63 ha [hectares, 1 hectare = 2.47 acres] representing 7% of the total land area of all islands studied. … Forty-three percent of islands have remained relatively stable (<±3% change) over the period of analysis. A further 43% of islands (12 in total) have increased in area by more than 3%. The remaining 15% of islands underwent net reduction in island area of more than 3%.

Of the islands that show a net increase in island area six have increased by more than 10% of their original planform area. … The remaining three islands are in Tarawa atoll with Betio, Bairiki and Nanikai increasing by 30%, 16.3% and 12.5% respectively over the 60 yr period of analysis (Table 2). Of note, the large percentage change on Betio represents an increase of more than 36 ha.

Only one island has shown a net reduction in island area greater than 10%. Tengasu is located on the southwest atoll rim of Funafuti and decreased in area by 14% over the 19 yr period of analysis. However, closer examination of the Tengasu data shows that it was the smallest island in the study sample (0.68 ha) and the absolute change in island area was 0.1 ha, which represents a substantial proportion of the total island area.

Page 245: “Of significance, the results of this study on atoll islands are applicable to islands in other reef settings, as the boundary controls on island formation and change are comparable. Results of this study contradict widespread perceptions that all reef islands are eroding in response to recent sea level rise.”

[353] Article: “U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked.” By Peter James Spielmann. Associated Press, June 29, 1989. <www.apnews.com>

A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.

Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of “eco-refugees,” threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP.

He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.

As the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by up to three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations, Brown told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday.

[354] Article: “With a Global Focus.” By William H. Mansfield III. EPA Journal, January/February 1989. Pages 37–39. <nepis.epa.gov>

Page 37:

Sea-level rise as a consequence of global warming would immediately threaten that large fraction of the globe living at sea level. Nearly one-third of all human beings live within 36 miles of a coastline. Most of the world’s great seaport cities would be endangered: New Orleans, Amsterdam, Shanghai, Cairo. Some countries—the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean, islands in the Pacific—would be inundated. Heavily populated coastal areas such as in Bangladesh and Egypt, where large populations occupy low-lying areas, would suffer extreme dislocation.

Page 39: “Mansfield is Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.”

[355] Calculated with data from the paper: “Earth’s Surface Water Change Over the Past 30 Years.” By Gennadii Donchyts and others. Nature Climate Change, August 25, 2016. Pages 810–813. <www.nature.com>

Pages 810–811:

Earth’s surface gained 115,000 km² of water and 173,000 km² of land over the past 30 years, including 20,135 km² of water and 33,700 km² of land in coastal areas. Here, we analyse the gains and losses through the Deltares Aqua Monitor—an open tool that detects land and water changes around the globe. …

The massive growth in satellite data has resulted in a severe demand in storage, computation and smart analytics to enable analysis of planetary-scale data. …

We see that globally, between 1985 and 2015, an area of about 173,000 km²—about the size of Washington State—has been converted to land, and an area of 115,000 km² has been converted into water.

CALCULATIONS:

• 173,000 km² of land – 115,000 km² of water = 58,000 km² net land gain
• 58,000 km² net land gain × 0.386102 mi² / km² = 22,394 mi² net land gain
• 33,700 km² of coastal land – 20,135 km² of coastal water = 13,565 km² net coastal land gain
• 13,565 km² net coastal land gain × 0.386102 mi² / km² = 5,237 mi² net coastal land gain

[356] Article: “Surface Water Shifting Around the Earth.” By Rebecca Morelle. BBC, August 25. 2016. <www.bbc.com>

[Study coauthor] Dr. Fedor Baart from Deltares said: “We started to look at areas that had not been mapped before.” …

“We expected that the coast would start to retreat due to sea level rise, but the most surprising thing is that the coasts are growing all over the world,” said Dr. Baart.

“We’re [sic] were able to create more land than sea level rise was taking.”

[357] Article: “Scientific Survey Shows Voters Across the Political Spectrum Are Ideologically Deluded.” By James D. Agresti. Just Facts, April 16, 2021. <www.justfacts.com>

The survey was comprised of 21 questions posed to U.S. residents who regularly vote. It was conducted just after the 2020 presidential election by Triton Polling & Research, an academic research firm that applied scientific survey methods to optimize accuracy. …

The responses were obtained through live telephone surveys of 1,000 likely voters across the U.S. during November 4–11, 2020. This sample size is large enough to accurately represent the U.S. population. Likely voters are people who say they vote “every time there is an opportunity” or in “most” elections.

The margin of sampling error for all respondents is ±3% with at least 95% confidence. The margins of error for the subsets are 5% for Biden voters, 5% for Trump voters, 4% for males, 5% for females, 9% for 18 to 34 year olds, 4% for 35 to 64 year olds, and 5% for 65+ year olds.

NOTE: For facts about what constitutes a scientific survey and the factors that impact their accuracy, visit Just Facts’ research on Deconstructing Polls & Surveys.

[358] Dataset: “Just Facts’ 2020 U.S. Nationwide Survey.” Just Facts, April 2021. <www.justfacts.com>

Page 4:

Q15. Again, thinking about the whole planet, do you think the total amount of land area on earth has declined since the 1980s?

Yes … Percent [=] 63.5

No … Percent [=] 27.4

Unsure … Percent [=] 8.7

Refused … Percent [=] 0.4

[359] Book: Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. By Al Gore. Houghton Mifflin, 1992.

Page 73:

About 10 million people in Bangladesh will lose their homes and means of sustenance because of the rising sea level, due to global warming, in the next few decades. Where will they go? Whom will they displace? What political conflicts will result? That is only one example. According to some predictions, not long after Bangladesh feels the impact, up to 60 percent of the present population of Florida may have to be relocated. Where will they go?

[360] Article: “Al Gore Summary.” Encyclopedia Britannica, October 12, 2007. <www.britannica.com>

“Political Affiliation: Democratic Party … He served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1977–85) and later the Senate (1985–93).”

[361] Webpage: “About CEGIS.” Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services. Accessed June 2, 2020 at <www.cegisbd.com>

While Bangladesh is making great strides towards holistic and sustainable development, CEGIS [Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services] has been relentlessly trying since the inception of its predecessor EGIS [Environmental Geographic Information System] in 1995 to support the country’s efforts for sustainable socio-economic development by providing scientific, technological and socio-economic know-how. It is a Public Trust under the Ministry of Water Resources of the Government of Bangladesh.

CEGIS is a scientifically independent organisation and performs integrated environmental analysis using technologies like GIS [geographic information system], RS, IT and databases. It provides solutions to issues and problems in a wide range of sectors, such as—but not limited to—water, land, agriculture, meteorology, forestry, fisheries, morphology, ecology, environment, climate change, archeology, socio-economy, power, transportation and disasters.

[362] Article: “Bangladesh Gaining Land, Not Losing: Scientists.” Agence France-Presse, July 29, 2008. <www.geospatialworld.net>

New data shows that Bangladesh’s landmass is increasing, contradicting forecasts that the South Asian nation will be under the waves by the end of the century, experts say.

Scientists from the Dhaka-based Center for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) have studied 32 years of satellite images and say Bangladesh’s landmass has increased by 20 square kilometres (eight square miles) annually.

Maminul Haque Sarker, head of the department at the government-owned centre that looks at boundary changes, told AFP [Agence France-Presse] sediment which travelled down the big Himalayan rivers—the Ganges and the Brahmaputra—had caused the landmass to increase. …

“Satellite images dating back to 1973 and old maps earlier than that show some 1,000 square kilometres of land have risen from the sea,” Sarker said.

[363] Article: “Bangladesh Landmass ‘Is Growing.’ ” By Mark Dummett. BBC News, July 30, 2008. <news.bbc.co.uk>

Satellite images of Bangladesh over the past 32 years show that the country is growing annually by about 20 square kilometres (7.72 square miles), said Maminul Haque Sarker of the Dhaka-based Centre for Environment and Geographic Information Services.

This was due, he said, to the billion tonnes of sediment that the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and 200 other rivers bring from the Himalayas each year before crossing Bangladesh.

[364] Calculated with data from:

a) Report: “Population Trends: Bangladesh.” U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, Bureau of the Census, Center for International Research, March 1993. <www.census.gov>

Page 1: “Bangladesh is the tenth most populous country in the world. Its current estimated population of 119 million is almost one-half the population size of the United States. But its area of 51,703 square miles is only 1.5 percent as large as the area of the United States. Bangladesh has the highest population density (2,310 persons per square mile) among all countries in the world that are not small island nations or city states.”

b) Webpage: “Bangladesh.” World Factbook. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Last updated May 1, 2023. <www.cia.gov>

“Population: 167,184,465 (2023 est.)”

CALCULATION: (167 – 119) / 119 = 40.3%

[365] Report: “Florida State of the Coast Report: Preparing for a Sustainable Future.” Florida Department of Community Affairs, Florida Coastal Management Program, September 1996.

Page 6: “In 1990, about 111 million people lived in coastal areas nationwide and Florida accounted for 10.1 million (9%) of those residents.”

[366] Calculated with data from the webpage: “Coastal Population and Housing Search.” National Ocean Economics Program, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Accessed May 10, 2023 at <www.oceaneconomics.org>

CALCULATION: (16,283,953 – 10,100,000) / 10,100,000 = 61%

[367] Webpage: “An Inconvenient Truth.” Participant Media. Accessed June 2, 2020 at <www.participantmedia.com>

From director Davis Guggenheim comes the hit, An Inconvenient Truth, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man’s commitment to expose the myths and misconceptions that surround global warming and inspire actions to prevent it. That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on an all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change.

[368] Documentary: An Inconvenient Truth. Paramount Pictures, 2006.

NOTE: The sea level rise simulation occurs in a section of the documentary that begins 57 minutes into the film. It is reproduced under the “fair use” provision of U.S. copyright law for “purposes such as criticism” and “comment” (17 U.S.C. §107).

[369] Calculated with data from the paper: “Sea-Level Acceleration Based on U.S. Tide Gauges and Extensions of Previous Global-Gauge Analyses.” By J.R. Houston and R.G. Dean. Journal of Coastal Research, February 23, 2011. Pages 409–417. <www.jcronline.org>

Page 409:

Without sea-level acceleration, the 20th-century sea-level trend of 1.7 mm/y would produce a rise of only approximately 0.15 m [5.9 in.] from 2010 to 2100….

In the Fourth Assessment Report (4AR) [2007] of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Bindoff and others. (2007) project a global sea-level rise relative to 1990 of 18–59 cm [7–23 in.] by 2100 and add as much as 0.20 cm† to the upper limit if melting of ice sheets increases in proportion to global average surface temperature increases (Meehl and others, 2007).

† NOTE: This unit was transcribed improperly and should be meters instead of centimeters. Just Facts has notified the authors of the paper about the error.

CALCULATIONS:

• 20 feet × (12 inches/foot) / 7.1 inches lower bound of 110-year predictions from the 2007 IPCC report = 33.8 times
• 20 feet × (12 inches/foot) / 31.1 inches upper bound of 110-year predictions from the 2007 IPCC report = 7.7 times

[370] Article: “Scientists Say Earth’s Warming Could Set Off Wide Disruptions.” By William K. Stevens. New York Times, September 18, 1995. <www.nytimes.com>

A continuing rise in average global sea level, which is likely to amount to more than a foot and a half by the year 2100. [sic] This, say the scientists, would inundate parts of many heavily populated river deltas and the cities on them, making them uninhabitable, and would destroy many beaches around the world. At the most likely rate of rise, some experts say, most of the beaches on the East Coast of the United States would be gone in 25 years. They are already disappearing at an average of 2 to 3 feet a year.

[371] Book: Best Beach Vacations in the Mid-Atlantic: From New York to Washington, D.C. By Donald D. Groff. Macmillan Travel, 1996.

Pages 4–260:

[372] On June 12, 2023, Just Facts conducted a comprehensive search for each of the beaches listed in the footnote above and found that all of them still exist.

[373] Map: “Mid-Atlantic Coast.” Google Maps, June 12, 2023. <www.google.com>

“U.S. East Coast, north-eastern tip of New York to south-eastern tip of Virginia.”

[374] Search: east coast beaches gone. Google, June 10, 2023. Date delimited to 6/1/1980–6/10/2023. <www.google.com>

[375] Book: Essentials of Meteorology: An Invitation to the Atmosphere (5th edition). By C. Donald Ahrens. Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2008.

Page 470: “Tropical cyclone The general term for storms (cyclones) that form over warm tropical oceans.”

[376] Report: “Science and the Storms: The USGS Response to the Hurricanes of 2005.” Edited by G.S. Farris and others. U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, 2007.

Chapter 2, Section “The Major Hurricanes of 2005: A Few Facts.” Compiled by Gaye S. Farris. Pages 12–15. <pubs.usgs.gov>

Page 12:

A cyclone is an atmospheric closed circulation that rotates counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. A tropical cyclone is a generic name for warm-core, nonfrontal, large-scale, low-pressure cyclones originating over tropical or subtropical waters, with organized deep convection (thunderstorm activity) and a closed surface wind circulation around a well-defined center.

Tropical cyclones include tropical depressions (winds less than 39 mi/hour or 63 km/hour) and tropical storms (39–73 mi/hour or 63–117 km/hour), which receive a name. When tropical cyclone winds reach 74 mi/hour (119 km/hour), they are called one of the following, depending on location:

• hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Northeast Pacific Ocean east of the International Dateline, or the South Pacific Ocean east of longitude 160° E

• typhoons in the Northwest Pacific Ocean west of the International Date Line

• severe tropical cyclones in the Southwest Pacific Ocean west of longitude 160° E or Southeast Indian Ocean east of longitude 90° E

• severe cyclonic storms in the North Indian Ocean

• tropical cyclones in the Southwest Indian Ocean

[377] Article: “Global Warming May Spawn More Super-Storms.” By Stephen Leahy.

Inter Press Service News Agency, September 20, 2004. <www.ipsnews.net>

“As the world warms, we expect more and more intense tropical hurricanes and cyclones,” said James McCarthy, a professor of biological oceanography at Harvard University.

Large parts of the world’s oceans are approaching 27 degrees C or warmer during the summer, greatly increasing the odds of major storms, McCarthy told IPS [Inter Press Service].

When water reaches such temperatures, more of it evaporates, priming hurricane or cyclone formation. Once born, a hurricane needs only warm water to build and maintain its strength and intensity.

[378] Webpage: “Global Tropical Cyclone Activity.” Dr. Ryan N. Maue. Updated December 31, 2022. <climatlas.com>

“Figure: Last 50-years+ of Global Tropical Storm and Hurricane frequency – 12-month running sums. The top time series is the number of TCs [tropical cyclones] that reach at least tropical storm strength (maximum lifetime wind speed exceeds 34-knots). The bottom time series is the number of hurricane strength (64-knots+) TCs.”

[379] Report: “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.” Edited by S. D. Solomon and others. World Meteorological Organization/United Nations Environment Programme, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Chapter 3: “Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change.” By Kevin E. Trenberth and others. Pages 235–336. <www.ipcc.ch>

Page 304:

Traditional measures of tropical cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons have varied in different regions of the globe, and typically have required thresholds of estimated wind speed to be crossed for the system to be called a tropical storm, named storm, cyclone, hurricane or typhoon, or major hurricane or super typhoon. Many other measures or terms exist, such as “named storm days”, “hurricane days”, “intense hurricanes”, “net tropical cyclone activity”, and so on.

The ACE [Accumulated Cyclone Energy] index (see Box 3.5), is essentially a wind energy index, defined as the sum of the squares of the estimated six-hour maximum sustained wind speed (knots) for all named systems while they are at least tropical storm strength. Since this index represents a continuous spectrum of both system duration and intensity, it does not suffer as much from the discontinuities inherent in more widely used measures of activity such as the number of tropical storms, hurricanes or major hurricanes. However, the ACE values reported here are not adjusted for known inhomogeneities in the record (discussed below). … Prior to about 1970, there was no satellite imagery to help estimate the intensity and size of tropical storms, so the estimates of ACE are less reliable, and values are not given prior to about the mid- or late 1970s in the Indian Ocean, South Pacific or Australian regions.

Page 305:

While attention has often been focussed simply on the frequency or number of storms, the intensity, size and duration likely matter more. NOAA’s [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index (Levinson and Waple, 2004) approximates the collective intensity and duration of tropical storms and hurricanes during a given season and is proportional to maximum surface sustained winds squared. The power dissipation of a storm is proportional to the wind speed cubed (Emanuel, 2005a), as the main dissipation is from surface friction and wind stress effects, and is measured by a Power Dissipation Index (PDI). Consequently, the effects of these storms are highly nonlinear and one big storm may have much greater impacts on the environment and climate system than several smaller storms.

[380] Webpage: “Global Tropical Cyclone Activity.” Dr. Ryan N. Maue. Updated November 30, 2022. <climatlas.com>

“Figure: Last 50-years+ of Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy [ACE]: 24 month running sums. Note that the year indicated represents the value of ACE through the previous 24-months for the Northern Hemisphere (bottom line/gray boxes) and the entire global (top line/blue boxes). The area in between represents the Southern Hemisphere total ACE.”

[381] Article: “Scientific Survey Shows Voters Widely Accept Misinformation Spread by the Media.” By James D. Agresti. Just Facts, January 2, 2020. <www.justfacts.com>

The survey was conducted by Triton Polling & Research, an academic research firm that serves scholars, corporations, and political campaigns. The responses were obtained through live telephone surveys of 700 likely voters across the U.S. during December 2–11, 2019. This sample size is large enough to accurately represent the U.S. population. Likely voters are people who say they vote “every time there is an opportunity” or in “most” elections.

The margin of sampling error for the total pool of respondents is ±4% with at least 95% confidence. The margins of error for the subsets are 6% for Democrat voters, 6% for Trump voters, 5% for males, 5% for females, 12% for 18 to 34 year olds, 5% for 35 to 64 year olds, and 6% for 65+ year olds.

The survey results presented in this article are slightly weighted to match the ages and genders of likely voters. The political parties and geographic locations of the survey respondents almost precisely match the population of likely voters. Thus, there is no need for weighting based upon these variables.

NOTE: For facts about what constitutes a scientific survey and the factors that impact their accuracy, visit Just Facts’ research on Deconstructing Polls & Surveys.

[382] Dataset: “Just Facts 2019 U.S. Nationwide Survey.” Just Facts, December 2019. <www.justfacts.com>

Page 3:

Q13. Again, thinking about the whole planet, do you think the number and intensity of hurricanes and tropical storms have generally increased since the 1980s?

Yes [=] 63.5%

No [=] 31.8%

Unsure [=] 4.2%

[383] For facts about how surveys work and why some are accurate while others are not, click here.

[384] Article: “A Character Sketch of Greenhouse.” By David Rind. EPA Journal, January/February 1989. Pages 4–7. <nepis.epa.gov>

Page 6: “The GISS [Goddard Institute for Space Studies] model’s forecast for the next 50 years gives changes of 2º C (3.6º F) by the year 2020, which would make the earth warmer than it is thought to have been at any point in historical time. … Rainfall patterns would likely be substantially altered, posing the threat of large-scale disruptions of agricultural and economic productivity, and water shortages in some areas.”

Page 7: “Dr. Rind is an atmospheric scientist at the Institute for Space Studies, Goddard Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University. He is a leading researcher on aspects of the greenhouse theory of atmospheric warming from certain gases.”

[385] Article: “Harvey Is What Climate Change Looks Like.” By Eric Holthaus. Politico, August 28, 2017. <www.politico.com>

Climate change is making rainstorms everywhere worse, but particularly on the Gulf Coast. Since the 1950s, Houston has seen a 167 percent increase in the frequency of the most intense downpours. …

Eric Holthaus is a meteorologist and contributing writer for Grist.

[386] Article: “Global Warming Is Increasing Rainfall Rates.” By John Abraham. The Guardian, March 22, 2017. <www.theguardian.com>

“In the United States, there has been a marked increase in the most intense rainfall events across the country. This has resulted in more severe flooding throughout the country.”

[387] Webpage: “John Abraham.” London Guardian. Accessed August 11, 2020 at <www.theguardian.com>

“Dr John Abraham is a professor of thermal sciences. He researches in climate monitoring and renewable energy generation for the developing world. His energy development work has extended to Africa, South America and Asia.”

[388] Paper: “Has the Magnitude of Floods Across the USA Changed with Global CO2 Levels?” By R.M. Hirsch and K.R. Ryberg. Hydrological Sciences Journal, October 24, 2011. <www.tandfonline.com>