a different perspective on climate change john r. christy university of alabama in huntsville...

A Different Perspective on Climate Change

John R. ChristyUniversity of Alabama in Huntsville

Alabama State Climatologist

Consensus is not Science

William Thompson (Lord Kelvin)

All Science is numbers

Michael Crichton

Some people will do anything to save the Earth ...

except take a science course.

Greenhouse “Affect”, Rolling Stone

P.J. O’Rourke

Energy Technology1900: World supported

56 billion human-life years

2005: World supports 429 billion

human-life years

The Basic Numbers

• Carbon Dioxide has increased 35%• Global Surface temperature rose

0.7 °C in past 100 years• Surface temperature responses to

2xCO2 increases (alone) is ~ 1 C• The associated feedbacks are

where the uncertainties are large (i.e. no confident numbers)

The Basic Numbers• Humans produce about 7

gigatons of CO2 (carbon mass) per year from energy production

• About 3.5 gigatons accumulates in the air each year

• There are about 740 gigatons of CO2 in the atmosphere

• The rate is increasing around 0.5% per year

The Basics

• Climate is always “changing”– Global temperature is rising or

falling– Sea level is rising or falling– Glaciers are retreating or

advancing

The Basics• Climate is always “changing”

– Global temperature is rising or falling– Sea level is rising or falling– Glaciers are retreating or advancing

• Climate cannot be adjusted in a predictable way– Initiatives to control climate have no

dependable outcome– Initiatives proposed to date have such a

tiny impact on the overall emissions, we could not measure any direct effect

"Global" Surface Temperature HadCRUT3

-0.8

-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

1850 1870 1890 1910 1930 1950 1970 1990 2010

Christy et al. 2006, J. Climate

+ Valley Stations•Mountain Stations

•Christy et al. 2006, J. Climate

CA Valley and Sierra (Jun-Nov) 1910-2003

8

12

16

20

24

1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

°C

Valley TMax (- 10°C)Valley TMinSierra TMin

Christy et al. 2006

MODIS21 Jul 2002

Jacques DescloitresMODIS Land Rapid Response Team NASA GSFC

Snyder et al. 2002

Sierras warm faster than Valley in model simulations

SE Surface Temperature Trend 1895-2003

-0.05

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

Obse

rved

BCM_C

M1

CCCMA_C

GCM

3

CCCMA_C

GCM

3_T63

CSIRO

_MK3_

0

GFDL_C

M2_

0

GFDL_C

M2_

1

IPSL_C

M4

MIR

OC3_

2_HIR

ES

MPI_

ECHAM5

MRI_

CGCM

2_2A

K/D

ecad

e

What About Upper Air Temperatures?

What About Upper Air Temperatures?

• Recent media reports suggest the upper air temperature record is in agreement with the surface and with climate models, so global warming theory must be right

• IPCC AR4 more or less supports this view

• Discrepancies, however, still exist though not communicated in the media

Vertical Temperature Change due to Greenhouse Forcing in

Models

Model Simulations of Tropical Troposphere Warming:About 2X surfaceLee et al. 2007

Christy and Norris 2006,Christy et al. 2007

Christy and Norris 2006,Christy et al. 2007

-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006

Global Bulk Atmospheric TemperaturesUAH Satellite Data

Warming rate 60% of model projections

Cold Places?

Antarctica Sea Ice

Chapman, U.Illinois

Antarctica snowaccumulationtrends cm/yr

1992-2003

Davis et al. 2005

See also:Monoghan et al 2006Van de Berg et al. 2006

Schneider et al. 2006

AntarcticaThermometersIce Cores

Doran et al. 2002

Antarctica Temperature VariationsIsotopes (green, Schneider et al. 2006), Thermometers (blue,

HadCRUT3)

-0.6-0.5-0.4-0.3-0.2-0.10.00.10.20.30.40.5

1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

°C D

epar

ture

s fr

om A

ver

age

Arctic Sea Ice

Chapman, U.Illinois

North Polar RegionsTemperature HadCRUT3

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

1850 1880 1910 1940 1970 2000

Arctic 70-85NGreenland

Satellite Sea Ice Record

Greenland Summer Temperatures

Vinther et al. 2005

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

1780 1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

JJA11-Year Avg

Greenland Borehole TemperatureDahl-Jensen et al. 1998

-32.5

-32.0

-31.5

-31.0

-30.5

0 500 1000 1500 2000

AlaskaHadley CRU 3 (°C)

Shift in 1977, but high natural variability

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

Kilimanjaro 18OTemperature Proxy Thompson 1996

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

1600 1700 1800 1900 2000

NIF2NIF3SIF2SIF1Mean N,S

When Hemingway writes “Snows of

Kilimanjaro”—half of the “snows” are

already gone

X

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005

Arusha/Kilimanjaro

TMax

Extreme Weather?

Oklahoma - record long period (> 100 days) without a tornado 2003-04

US Hurricanes

U.S. Hurricane Strikes by Decade (NOAA 2007)

0

5

10

15

20

25

1850 1870 1890 1910 1930 1950 1970 1990 2010

Last year of Decade

Cat 1-5Cat 3-5

2001-2006

Global Hurricane ActivityThere has been no significant change in

global net tropical cyclone activity (Klotzbach 2006)

Droughts? US: Blue = Fewer and Shorter

Andreadis and Lettenmairer 2006

Sea Level Rise?

Global Sea Level (gsl) elevation (mm) and growth rate (mm/yr) - Jevrejeva et al. 2006

Suzuki et al. 2005+ Thermal Expansion+ Greenland melting- Antarctica accumulation

Neptune warming?

(a) represents the corrected visible light from Neptune from 1950 to 2006; (b) shows the temperature anomalies of the Earth; (c) shows the total solar irradiance as a percent variation by year; (d) shows the ultraviolet emission from the Sun (Source: Hammel and Lockwood (2007)).

Evidence Thus Far• Global surface and atmospheric

temperatures are rising in a way somewhat inconsistent with model projections of greenhouse gas forcing

• Overall decline in ice mass, with sea level rise of 1” per decade

• Severe weather not becoming more frequent

Two Sides?

• Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth– Disaster is upon us

• Channel 4’s The Great Global Warming Swindle– Mankind has no impact on

climate

• Is either of these the truth?

Main Point:

I don’t see a disaster developing

But, suppose you do ….

Model Projection of Global Temperature

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

1990 2005 2020 2035 2050 2065 2080 2095

°C

A1BA1B USA AB 1493

The IPCC AR4 best guess scenario (A1B, red) and the application of California AB 1493 (green) auto emission regulation to all states (0.01 °C)

Model Projection of Global Temperature

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

°C

A1B1000 nuclear power plants

The IPCC AR4 best guess scenario (A1B, red, global temperature) and the impact of 1000 nuclear power plants operating by 2020 (green)