Debunking Climate Change Alarmism: The Average Global Temperature

One of the arguments used by advocates of anthropogenic global warming is the idea that there is a perfect global temperature that exists. They argue that this temperature needs to remain - and can remain - in a constant state and it is human activity that is interrupting this condition, and that human activity (or a lack of) can restore it. There is nothing farther from the truth in the global warming movement than this flawed mentality. The climate has never been in such an unvarying status, it isn’t now, and it never will be.

Has anyone ever defined what the average world temperatures are supposed to be? The answer is, no - at least not with any merit to their argument. So how would we determine what the perfect temperature should be, and once we are successful in determining that answer, what can be done to achieve it? There are many possibilities in how the average can be found and it mostly depends on your starting point.

I’m sure most people would agree that a decade, or even a century is not long enough to conclusively decide on what the average climate should be. A warming or cooling trend can last much longer than a century. A thousand, or even a million years may not be adequate both because we all know that ice ages last much longer than these time frames and if we averaged temperatures exclusively within the period of an ice age, we would not have an accurate gauge for the ideal global climate. We also would not be able to go back to the origin of the planet because it wouldn’t be accurate to factor the climates that existed before multi-cellular life forms existed.

So, for the sake of this article, we will start averaging our global climate around the start of multi-cellular, marine and land-based, plant and animal life. This will take us back about 550 million years. At that time, average global temperatures were estimated to be over 20 degrees Celsius. This mild climate continued until about 450 million years ago when the Ordovician ice age began. It only lasted a few million years in which temperatures dropped to below twelve degrees Celsius, then rose back to its previous climate, around 20 degrees Celsius for well over 100 million years.

Around 315 million years ago, the climate drifted into the Carboniferous/Permian ice age. Average global temperatures once again fell below twelve degrees Celsius, but this time it was for over 45 million years. Approximately 270 million years ago, the climate warmed again to an average over 20 degrees. During the late Jurassic Period, there was a slight dip in temperatures from about 165 to 135 million years ago in which temperatures were near seventeen degrees Celsius. They then returned to over 20 degrees again and remained there until our current ice age began approximately 40 million years ago, bringing temperatures back near twelve degrees on average.

Now, using these rough estimates, we can find an approximate average of what our global temperatures should be compared to past climates. We can see that for nearly 78% of the last 550 million years our climate was near, or warmer than 20 degrees Celsius. Only about 16% of this time was spent near, or below 12 degrees Celsius. That leaves only 6% near 17 degrees. So, for approximately 86% of this time, the Earth has been warmer than 17 degrees Celsius.

Today, our average global temperatures are around 15 degrees – far below the average found over the last 550 million years which is (if my math is correct) approximately 18.5 degrees Celsius.

Granted these are not precise numbers we’re dealing with since there is no reliable recorded data from many millions of years ago, but the estimates are close enough to compile an average over this time. If we are speaking of a true, average temperature on which to base our current warming trends, then this 18.5 degree approximation would be a good gauge to use. So, if that is the case, then an additional warming of three degrees Celsius beyond our current climate would only bring us to our global average of the last half billion years.

Now that we have established a figure to use as the average global temperature, how do we determine if it is ideal for our way of life? Furthermore, how do we ensure that it’s kept there, or if it’s determined to not be ideal, how do we avoid it? It is well-known that the Earth’s climate shifts whether humans are involved or not, and it’s obvious that our current temperatures are below the average compared to most of our planet’s history involving multi-cellular life forms.

To keep things in perspective, global temperatures have only risen about one degree Celsius since the start of the Industrial Revolution (a span of about 250 years), which happened to begin near the end of the Little Ice Age. Naturally, if temperatures were lower than the average at that point, they are undoubtedly subject to rise again. Choosing your starting point when making statistical observations has a direct consequence on the amount of changes observed. If the temperatures today were compared to the temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period, they would in no way be alarming. But since the comparison starts at a time when temperatures were far below average, it makes recent warming appear to be a looming crisis.

Many scientists believe that even trying to calculate an average temperature is mostly impractical and may be irrelevant. Not only did we not have the instruments necessary to record global temperatures in the past, we don’t have them now, except for maybe satellite (which is a fairly new way of obtaining this data and has experienced problems of its own). But temperature does not explain the overall climate anyway. The difference in air masses is what drives our local weather conditions which, collectively, create regional climates that are then calculated to produce an average global climate. Therefore, an average global climate in no way reflects what most people experience in their local areas.

Beyond the fact that temperatures alone do not explain climates, what does the temperature mean? What do we learn by measuring air temperatures?

The Earth’s energy is drawn from the sun. Air temperatures are directly related to the sun’s solar radiation, as they are a measurement of the energy in the air. This energy can be converted into heat. If more solar radiation penetrates our atmosphere, more energy is present, which ultimately means that increased radiation results in higher recorded temperatures. Other factors, such as humidity or cloud cover, contribute to warmer or cooler temperatures because of the ability to absorb or reflect radiation. Thus, air temperatures are not an accurate gauge of our climatic conditions; they are essentially a measurement of atmospheric energy.

So, if average global temperatures cannot explain local, regional, or even global climates, and if temperatures essentially represent the amount of energy present in our atmosphere which is derived from the sun, why are the advocates of anthropogenic global warming obsessed with statistics representing an increase in temperatures as proof of “catastrophic” climate change? Moreover, if these temperatures are in fact a vital component in determining future climates, then we still have a long way to go before they exceed any historic variability. Remember, we can still experience a three degrees Celsius increase in global temperatures before we reach our long-term average of 18.5 degrees.

Since it is practically impossible to determine an accurate and precise average temperature for our planet, in both the short and long-term, and knowing that it does not wholly explain our climate, the attention given to such a measurement is unwarranted. Add to this the fact that reliable, instrumental data has only become available within the last 200 years, which happens to immediately follow a global episode commonly referred to as a mini-ice age, and the claims of “unprecedented” high temperatures appear to be little more than alarmist advocacy. This alarmism is an effective way to engage a largely uninformed or misinformed public and recklessly plays on the fears derived from public ignorance.

We need more data and a better understanding of that information in order to make responsible statements about our past, current, and future climate conditions. The global warming alarmists lack this very basic, common-sense approach to science, to informing the public, and to creating policies that will affect millions, if not billions of people around the world.

[Paleoclimate temperature estimates were derived from the following websites.]

http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm

http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html