This is the climate portion of the PNW weather prediction given at the Spokane Farm Forum and Ag Show last February featuring Dr. Art Douglas.
In preparation for this post I found that I needed to bolster my vocabulary and knowledge about the Milankovitch Cycle. <
Milankovitch Cycle > It's one thing to listen and get the drift of what Douglas is saying, and it's something else to restate the information without attaching a 20min recording of the presentation, --so I'm not going to try!
I do have a better understanding of why the media doesn't report this phenomena. It's complex with a lot of interaction and timing of various facets, and, although there is a great body of data that backs up the Milankovitch Cycle, there are two phenomena that it doesn't adequately explain so it's still considered a theory. Hence, the only thing the media can get their teeth into, and the public can understand, is all the CO2 we are dumping into our atmosphere through burning of fossil fuels. We are bombarded with this "fact" daily. It's the "chicken little" syndrome that won't go away anytime soon. My thought is that fossil fuels will be the worlds principal fuel until it becomes scarce, because of economics and infrastructure world wide. The money that was/is being spent on inefficient wind monstrosities should have been directed to advances in scrubbing and sequestering end material from burning fossil fuel. Unlike wind, the money spent on solar technology appears to be a good investment, with efficiency and new technology being announced on nearly a monthly basis.
[IN SUMMARY] What I got out of this presentation is: Human activity is contributing to our warming planet; however, it's insignificant compared to the effects of energy supplied by "Sun Spot Activity", and factors associated with the Milankovitch Cycle. The data is starting to show a change. Is this change a flattening out, or a move to a down trend in temperature? It may take a decade or two for that to become clear. [My thought] --in the short term, (40-50yr), the planet will continue to warm, with some rise in ocean levels. This is going to be devastating for population around the world living at sea level, and will effect food production. This will, in itself, cause a lot of political unrest. In the media there is a lot of handwringing and support for solutions based on chasing symptoms instead of solutions based on projected outcome, --moving populations and developing water storage for instance. GMO technology will likely keep food production ahead of our shrinking productive land base.
[ CLIMATE CHANGE PRESENTATION ]: Dr. Art Douglas has a Master's, in SST (sea surface temperature). Three quarters of the earth is covered by water, hence, the oceans drive our weather. Temperature change creates ocean currents and how they act. This in turn moves temperature differentials around the globe effecting air temperature, and rainfall and whether CO2 is released or absorbed. The oceans are the largest source, and sink, for CO2. A little change in ocean temperatures makes a huge difference in Atmospheric CO2. Since a significant part of his talk this year centered around climate change I have been waiting to see what would be written in the local papers. So far, I haven't seen a word printed on the subject. Douglas' statement at the beginning of his presentation was
"he hoped we were at the end of politicizing the changing climate". (I don't see that happening.)
I'll go over a few points that he made and include pic's of some of his slide presentation.
He started with three antidotal topics to set the stage. I found these fascinating, but way to detailed to regurgitate here. This is a snippet of his presentation. IN SUMMARY, THERE ARE A LOT OF PROBLEMS WITH THE DATA. Over time each innovation has resulted in the temperature being stepped up 1-3 degrees from the previous method. These discrepancies are enough on their own to explain the temperature rise. The following, three sources of change/discrepancy are discussed.
In/around his yard, he has about an 80 foot elevation difference. He put out three thermometers, top-middle-bottom, and found several degrees difference. I have noticed that as well. In 30 feet elevation to the hill behind my house the temperature differential ranges from 1-3 degrees compared to the house.
The SST gained a degree when data acquisition changed. This data collection was mandated, starting in 1860. At intervals mariners would toss a bucket into the ocean and then put a thermometer in it. Between WWI & WWII, the mariners started taking the SST by induction. This is where sea water was used to cool the ship propulsion system and they put a thermometer in the induction line to the engine. That elevated temperature over the previous method by a degree.
The NWS (national weather service) changed out their weather stations and went to electronic remote sensing. I believe he mentioned that this was world wide in the early 2000's. The old stations were read by humans and placed 4.5 feet above the ground. The new stations are placed 20 feet above ground and remotely sent to the data collection facility. I think Douglas mentioned that this created a change of about 3 degrees difference from the old readings. When this change out was done, Douglas was able to acquire all of the thermometers from the Nebraska weather stations. he did studies with these and found that there was a degree difference between the highest and lowest readings of these instruments.
You get the picture, --world wide, there is a huge data base, taken by a lot of people taken over a long span of time with different methods employed. To me this is a perfect scenario to start a cause and have data to back it up.
Art Douglas is a strong advocate of the power of natural phenomena that originates with the sun and the orbits of planets, specifically earth and it's relationships with the sun and planets. He does acknowledge that human activity plays a role. Without saying so, he left me with the impression that human activity is a minor player in the drama of climate change. The orbit of the earth around the sun changes shape over time. These are cyclic. The tilt of the earth changes over time and is also cyclic.
This graph shows that the present time is the lowest temperature and CO2 levels for the last 300 million years of earths history. We can't take comfort in that information because a level that can be devastating for us may not even show as a bump on this graph's time frame. It does show how fragile our hold on existence may be.
The Milankovitch Cycles consist of earths elliptical orbit around the sun -- The earth's tilt as it circles the sun, which changes over time --The Precession is the wobble of the earth on it's axis. At any moment in time, these three cycles, along with sunspots, interact and produce an effect on the earth. These forces effect the earth in totality, as well as differences in points across the earth's surface from pole to pole.
Sun spots are flares of burning gas that extend great (and varying) distances from the surface of the sun. On rare occasions, the energy from a flare reaching the earth is so intense that it interrupts communications and has shut down a power grid in the northeast US. Intensity and frequency of sun spots effect our atmosphere and surface temperatures.
This graph displays what has happened over the past 400 years of Sunspot observations.
These models are predicting a cooling trend for the future. One or two years ago, Dr. Douglas mentioned that data supporting the temperature trend line was starting to show a change. Whether that was an indication of flattening out, or moving on to trend low, I can't say.
I struggle with this chart. What I remember being associated with it is that the current data indicates that time has been lengthened out another 50K-100K years to the next major accumulation of ice.
Dr. Douglas' presentation was ended with this statement from a team of scientists in Denmark.
