Update – Please do look at this 5min video from a co-founder of Greenpeace: http://prageruniversity.com/Environmental-Science/What-They-Havent-Told-You-about-Climate-Change.html#.Vc4sj_lViko
Happy New Year to you all!
I realise global Warming is not a Tendring Specific issue. However, it is a special interest of mine and I was recently challenged to show where it get my information from. Having done this piece of work, I thought I would share it more widely.
Atmospheric CO2 comes from http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/. This comes from an observatory on Mauna Loa and does suffer from the problem that there is significant human intervention. I gather 85% of the data points recorded are manually rejected. Nonetheless, I am not aware that anyone is challenging rise from c1950 to the current day from about 0.3% to about 0.4% (ie about 33%). This dataset is seasonal. Though presumably a global figure would not be. The trend is pretty much a straight line – slight upward curve. Whether it is man-made or not is another question, though presumably the burning of fossil fuels and cutting down of rain forest must have some effect.
Polar ice extent comes from http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/ – One tab for the Arctic and another for the Antarctic. The Antarctic graph shows steady growth of about 0.5-1.0% per decade. The Arctic graph shows a decline of 4-5% per decade. However, that is to take a trend through two inflections. Arctic ice is actually fairly stable up to the mid-1990’s, then it falls through to the early/mid 2000’s and is flat since then. 2006 is the low point and the 2015 minimum was the 6th lowest on record. The fall from pre-1990 levels to post-2010 levels was about 1m Km2 in a total of around 11m Km2 (ie about 10%). There is more polar ice now than there was a decade ago, but 10% less than there was 30 years ago.
Note:- Polar ice extent is from satellite data, with minimal human intervention.
Global temperatures come from http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/. The one to look for is Global TLT. TLT is Temperature Lower Troposphere, the troposphere is the 15-20 Km above the surface of the earth. So the lower troposphere is the bit in touch with the earth. This shows stable temperatures through to the early 1990’s, then it rises through to 1998 and is flat since then. The rise from pre-1990 levels to post 2000 levels is around 0.4oC. The fall in arctic ice lags the rise in temperature by about five years.
Note:- This global temperature info is from satellite data with minimal human intervention. I have previously used http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut3/diagnostics/comparison.html but that requires significant intervention by people who are paid by the global warming lobby.
I have no source for sea level rises – because sea levels are not rising! I know of no credible source for any evidence of sea level rises. There are sporadic reports of islands in the Ganges delta being lost or Pacific islands inundated. However, if these are not from fanciful researchers, they will be down to erosion or changes in land level. If there is a global rise in sea levels, then it will be happening worldwide – that is the nature of water (and indeed worldwide).
Will the world succeed in keeping temperatures to less than 2oC above pre-industrial levels? Of course – our glorious leaders would not be able to push temperatures above that level even if they tried!
It is such a shame that the environmental debate focuses on CO2 emissions rather than habitat conservation and species/genetic diversity.