Climate
Change –Yes Carbon-dioxide – No. A
regression and polynomial analysis study.
By Dr Chris Barnes
Bangor Scientific and Educational Consultants First Published on Internet 19th
December 2012
E-mail
scienceconsultants@yahoo.co.uk
Dr Barnes' Homepage Link http://drchrisbarnes.co.uk
Abstract
Commonly
available climate data are re-analysed in a variety of ways. Conclusions are reached which support
previous finding of the author that the main driver of both positive and much
more recent negative global temperature change may be aviation emissions especially
contrails . Pre the jet travel era there
appears to be little if any significant warming or CO2 correlation. Warming
started in earnest with the now famous ‘hockey stick’ which can be explained by
types of aircraft and contrail in use at any given time.
Introduction
Most educated people in
our world are convinced our climate and our regional weather has changed
dramatically in recent years. Carbon mediated anthropogenic global warming is
now accepted by many but there remain sceptics and dissenters. It is also unfortunate that modern
interpretations of climate change as presented particularly by the media and
IPCC rarely. if ever, refer to the medieval
warming period in which clearly some natural process caused enormous
climate warming.
Recent work of the
present author casts a shadow of doubt on the modern day premise for climate
warming we have all come to accept. This
author is not the only scientist to add a voice of caution. This author’s work tends to suggest that it
is aviation emissions (especially contrails) not earthbound global carbon
emissions that is/has been responsible for the bulk of or possibly all global
warming since 1970 and possibly since as early as 1940[1].
Hypothesis
Much has been made of
the recent ‘hockey stick’ effect in global temperatures between about 1970 and
2000. Protagonists of doom would have us
believe this is portending of carbon induced runaway warming wherein the entire
planet will scorch to death by about 2050.
The simplest hypothesis
we can consider is if global warming is purely down to carbon dioxide there
ought to be the observation of a linear
fit between the observed degree of warming and its driver unless that is a positive feedback process
accentuates the warming or a secondary process is responsible all along. Furthermore many of the known feedback
processes have half –lives of hundreds or even thousands of years; thus if
sudden changes are observed over a matter of ten or twenty years they are far
more likely to be related to a secondary driver than a feedback effect.
A secondary hypothesis
would be to consider what happens before the ‘hockey stick’? Much seems to be
being made these days of reporting the slope of temperature behaviour just a
few year trends in the behaviour of global temperature. What is proposed here
is that we look for whatever trend there might be form say 1850 -1940 or so
i.e. post industrial revolution but before our ‘hockey stick’ or secondary
driver.
Data
The data sets employed
are readily available in the public domain. The main data set employed is a
compilation taken from the website http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com
which shows global temperature between 1900 -2010 obtained by eight different
workers or groups of workers included the famous ‘HadCRUT’
team. In order to extend the data source
back to 1850 data from the Met office available at http://www.therm-eco/energy/inages
is used. Data for carbon dioxide concentrations is taken from http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?start=294&um=1&hl=en&newwindow=1&client=firefox-a&sa=N&tbo=d&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&c
and shown below.
Results
The results obtained
are shown below.
Figure
1 Global Land Temperature changes versus CO2 linear regression R=.84
(1850-2000)
On inspection, it
becomes quickly apparent that the fit is quite poor and that temperature change
does not initially seem to respond to increasing CO2 but then responds
non-linearly. This would be evident of either
a positive feedback process or a secondary driver.
Figure
2 Same data as figure 1 with quadratic fit applied R=.93
Various polynomial
regressions have been tried but there is no significant improvement over a
quadratic fit. This is clearly indicative that there is either a positive
feedback process or a secondary driver of global warming over and above CO2
alone, if that is CO2 is to be implicated at all. If one takes a two spline approximation of
the data, the secondary driver would seem to be most active after a CO2
concentration of about 318 ppm or an equivalent date of 1970. 1970 coincides with the date wherein the RPK
growth in aviation is steepest and wherein Second Generation Turbofan aircraft
were first being implemented. As it has been stated earlier the author has previously
presented very strong evidence to suggest that anthropogenic global temperature
change is associated with aviation.
If there is some
association of global climate change with CO2 in the absence of positive
feedback or secondary it ought to be seen in industrial times which predate extensive
use of aviation because about 1/3rd of the total amount of
anthropogenic CO2 was released during that period. Do we however see 1/3rd of the
total global warming? Do we see any correlation at all with CO2?
A cursory inspection of
the met office data, even without mathematical analysis shows there is very little to go on. Average global land temperatures in 1850 were
the same as those in 1930 with random fluctuations in between.
Figure
3
No strong or even weak
-correlation of global temperature is shown in the CO2 range 284-311 ppm. Random variations with periodicities of about 5 and 11
years are seen more reminiscent of solar drivers and/or El Nino/El Nina events.
Any attempts to employ polynomial
regression on these data fail or at best using a fourth order model with a
regression value of <0.5 predict a model of catastrophic warming with
temperature changes of +380 C by the time present levels of CO2 are reached
indicating just what a nonsense climate prediction has turned out to be and
illustrating just how noisy the data is.
Figure
4
Finally, figure 4 shows
all the available data to December 2012. Global CO2 approaches 400 ppm and yet
global temperatures have started to fall again since about 1997. It was felt appropriate to fit the data using
a cubic function to take into account the possibility of a negative feedback
entering the equation. In the author’s opinion this may be the effect of
contrail cirrus with ice particle shape, size and distribution as to cause
global cooling/dimming. These types of
clouds once rare are now, since coincidentally about 1997, literally seen all
over the world. Clearly more
investigation is urgently needed.
On the other hand, the
data fits with an equal regression factor .93 using a sinusoidal fit. Such
functions are more reminiscent of natural processes. There are a considerable
number of famous scientists in the world who would support this
conclusion.
Conclusions
The work above casts
serious doubt on CO2 being the reason for, or main driver of, global
temperature change. It tends to suggest that the famous ‘hockey stick’ is all
that advocates of any sort of modern day warming have left to hold on to,
metaphorically speaking of course. Given
the acceleration in aviation at this date and changes in aircraft engines and
given the recent work of Boucher and the present author it is urgent high time
that all efforts of climate science are steered in this direction.
Ideally, there should
be a programme wherein all contrails could be suppressed or totally avoided in
order to elucidate there contribution to the driver observed. For even with their suppression we must not
rule out aerosol and water vapour acting independently.