Satellites may have been underestimating the planet's warming for decades

Though I have to confess that I was a bit of a climate skeptic previously, I'm slowly coming around. I mean after all, much of North America was covered by glaciers - and those melted LONG before the industrial revolution and man's dumping all the CO2, methane, etc into the atmosphere. So denying that the earth has a large degree of "climate change" that is NOT driven by man is also ignoring science.

On the other hand, global warming advocates/proponents have been caught cooking the books on more than one occasion. That creates a healthy skepticism of the climate change lobby.

Pretty sure NASA even admitted that "we can't accurately model clouds" - which throws another big variable into the mix.

As an organic farmer and part-time tree-hugger, I'm all for reducing man's footprint on the planet. Unfortunately, I'll think with the tunnel-vision focus on CO2 - we're all but ignoring the pollution that plastics and other toxic chemicals have on our environment.

The government is also a terrible driver for real change. The EPA seems to be more in the business of licensing pollution rather than reducing it. 'Course, the government also gives itself a pass on all regulations that the rest of industry has to obey.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

we're not ignoring them at all, but with everything government, all we can do is vote and take personal responsibility for our actions.
which leaves us with the many problems we have today, and will continue to have, no matter how much we post on priuschat

 

For those who have been following this topic for a while, Santer's abstract is a marvel of understatement

There are 2 analyses of lower tropospheric temperatures derived from satellite data. UAH shows temperature increases of 0.13 degrees C per decade, RSS shows 0.18.

There are several distinct compilations of surface temperature measurements. They are all very close to 0.19 degrees C per decade. All these apply only to post-1978 'satellite era'.

It has been a matter of long discussion why UAH differs from all the rest. This is as brief as I can be on the subject.

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Deriving atmospheric temperature and moisture content with satellites both involve passive sensing of microwave (different wavelengths) and lots of math. If there is a way to be certain which maths work better, it is not known to me.

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Earth was hotter and with more CO2 than now, from 50 to 5 million years ago. Validity of both statements relies on accuracy of paleoproxies, and they are large topics in themselves. But one may conclude that Earth and biota manage, somehow, under such conditions. This is not the same thing as saying that the human enterprise would thrive as well. It is a planet dominating system involving interactions of water, energy, food supply etc., all having been carefully tuned to conditions of the 19th and 20th centuries.

 

Living in Huntsville AL, hometown of UAH, I've followed the UAH vs RSS difference. I stopped following after software analysis revealed the UAH code is of poor quality. Worse, releases seem to follow code changes with UAH going more divergent. So I looked for a better thermometer, sea level.

Sea level is not a trivial problem due to tidal basin changes. However, a serious of satellites have kept pretty accurate records and it continues to rise ... not from Congressman Mo Brooks claim about runoff and dirt accumulation increasing the sea level.

Bob Wilson

 

and bathers

 

Well there you have it, new readers. This is how elders behave. I over reach topics, Bob goes 'sea level', and Bisco makes a joke (I guess it was a joke - hard to be sure).
The 3 stooges.

 

UAH' Spencer offered the largest kaboom (+T) in the 1998 El Nino, which left T not increasing for years after. While that has since been eclipsed even by UAH data, we still hear it presented as evidence that global warming has stopped.

Life gets easier when one finds a way to be amused by such things.

 

Curious coincidence as I was sharing this image on another forum:

Someone decided to troll a Tesla forum I monitor because a 3d user, 'Earl', reportedly had trolled a Hyundai Kona forum. So the Kona advocate started a trollish thread in a Tesla forum. Fortunately the moderator relocated the trollish thread.

Source: Sea Level | Vital Signs – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet


Bob Wilson

 

no worries. joe is gonna fix this, and i suggest he start by doing everything china is doing

 

"cooking the books" @2 leads me to Snopes

Was Global Warming Data 'Faked' to 'Fit Climate Change Fictions'? | Snopes.com

Which I imagine will be news here to very few.