Is there an average global temperature?

American Thinker ^ | March 18, 2007 | James Lewis

[neverdem]

It is already painfully clear that models of anthropogenic global warming are ridiculously inadequate, and do not meet the basic tests of experimental science, no matter how many "scientists" yell "consensus." Now comes a serious question from a serious scientist that threatens to undermine the fundamental premise of the alarmists.

Danish physicist Bjarne Andresen has raised the interesting point that there may be no global warming, because there is no such thing as global temperature! That is because the earth atmosphere is not a homogeneous system. It's not a glass lab jar in your high school physics lab.

Says Andresen,

"It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth. A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate."(Italics added.)

Andresen is a professor at The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen. His article appeared in The Journal of Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics, with coauthors Essex and McKitrick. The journal deals with energy systems that are too complex to come to equilibrium, unlike a cup of hot tea, which behaves in a highly predictable way. A lot of important physical systems, like the climate, appear to be non-equilibrium systems. They are not well understood, which is why they are a hot frontier topic in physics.

Mathematically, there are several different "measures of central tendency," which is what an "average" really is. When we think about "average global temperature" we are usually thinking about the arithmetic mean. But there is also a geometric mean, a mode, a median, and more complicated expressions that can be used as numerical indices for the heat content of a physical system. But as Andresen points out, which of those "averages" you use depends upon your model of the atmosphere.

The current evidence cited for "global warming" could even mean a decrease in the physical heat density of the atmosphere, if a different mathematical average is used. And because the climate is driven by differences in heat between different regions --- leading to the daily weather, as well as hurricanes and snow storms --- the right predictor for global climate may not be an average heat density at all, but rather the regional differences in heat content. Weather systems flow from high to low pressure regions, which are in turn dependent upon complex heat exchange mechanisms.

All the standard arguments for global warming rely upon conventional "equilibrium" models of the atmosphere, all of which may be false.

As Andersen suggests, global warming hype may be more politics than science.

Reference.

C. Essex, R. McKitrick, B. Andresen: Does a Global Temperature Exist? Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics (2007).

Cited by http://www.eurekalert.org/, March 15, 2007

James Lewis blogs at http://www.dangeroustimes.wordpress.com/

[pabianice]

[TommyDale]

Yes, and the average temperature has gone up .1 degree during the past 100 years. At this rate, we will all be dead in 10,000 years. /sarcasm

[martin_fierro]

I wonder if November 1976 marked the point at which NG really started to suck.

It has adopted such an increasingly hard-Greenie bias in recent years that I finally canceled my subscription. A shame.

[A. Pole]

Excellent!

[lepton]

Well, there's also a very vague and highly varying "definition" for surface temperature.

[finnman69]

I just pulled that old national Geographic off the shelf, i'm going to have read the ice age hysteria article. LOL

[GSlob]

Is there an average global temperature?
Yes, there is. Just like in a hospital, where it is 98.6F. Some are in fever, and some are on ice in a morgue, but on average everyone has a perfectly healthy temperature.

[Zon]

What does this mean for the Vostok ice core readings? Are they unreliable or has the methodology been set and therefore must maintain the same methodology when extrapolating into the future? Or am I missing something here?

[Lokibob]

Here is a show that was on BBC this week, debunking global warming.( called"The Great Global Warming Scandal" )
Warning: It is 75 mins long, so make time for it.
Excellent stuff, though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XttV2C6B8pU

[truth_seeker]

"Yes, and the average temperature has gone up .1 degree during the past 100 years. At this rate, we will all be dead in 10,000 years. /sarcasm"

Don't want to wait that long. Prefer warm to cold.

[lawdude]

"I wonder if November 1976 marked the point at which NG really started to suck.

It has adopted such an increasingly hard-Greenie bias in recent years that I finally canceled my subscription. A shame."

Yup, about then. Same with Scientific American. Both became smarmy, unbearable political organs of the tree hugging radical left wing kooks.Neither has published a actual scientific premise since then, Gorebasms only, IMHO!.

[Bernard Marx]

I wonder if November 1976 marked the point at which NG really started to suck.

I can't recall the exact date but the magazine issued a public statement sometime in the 1970s, I think, saying that the Earth's environment would be its only concern from that point on. I knew a writer/photographer on staff and he'd been complaining since the late 1960s about "All the new hires from the Missouri School of Journalism" who were changing the focus and thrust of the magazine.

Infiltrating the media, along with schools and universities, the judiciary and other vital American institutions, has been the long-term project of the Marxist left: its long march through the institutions. It appears the global environment is the Trojan horse they've chosen as the means to achieve global socialism. Lies about "global warming?" Never forget their credo: "By any means necessary."

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Is there an average global temperature?"

I believe the answer is "42." ;)

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

I used to teach TA in statistics as a grad student. The average is a horrible statistic. It is easily pulled by anomalous readings.

Example: What is the average of the following set: 1, 1, 1, 1, 10, 1?

The answer is easy enough to calculate: 2.5.

But is "2.5" representative of the set? What would be a typical value for the set? Is there any member of the set which is atypical and deserves another look?

Politicians love the average because it is such a fine tool for demagoguery. In the case of "average" temperature calculations, some readings come from peri-urban areas which have become increasingly developed in the past decades. Development means less foliage and brooks and more pavement. Significant increases in measured temperatures result, and these will pull any average calculated in a set which includes them.

[randog]

Same with Scientific American.

Same with Discover magazine. The last issue I read (maybe 10 years ago), had a review on a WWI biplane video game. The reviewer gave it a bad review because the player wasn't given a sense of remorse for killing his opponent. I don't even know if the magazine exists anymore.

[xcamel]

FReepmail me to get on or off

Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown

Ping me if you find one I've missed.

---

[ancient_geezer]

A link to a copy of the actual paper discussed in the article, they bring up some very interesting issues concerning even the validity of using a global average to represent a 3 dimensionally dynamic field such as a temperature in an ever changing climate:

Does a Global Temperature Exist
Christopher Essex, Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Western Ontario
Bjarne Andresen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
Ross McKitrick, Department of Economics, University of Guelph
Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics, Volume 32 No. 1

Physical, mathematical and observational grounds are employed to show that there is no physically meaningful global temperature for the Earth in the context of the issue of global warming. While it is always possible to construct statistics for any given set of local temperature data, an infinite range of such statistics is mathematically permissible if physical principles provide no explicit basis for choosing among them. Distinct and equally valid statistical rules can and do show opposite trends when applied to the results of computations from physical models and real data in the atmosphere. A given temperature field can be interpreted as both "warming" and "cooling" simultaneously, making the concept of warming in the context of the issue of global warming physically ill-posed.

[Zon]

Thanks ag. It seems analogous, or metaphorical, to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. That is, there can be a data set that can be statistically evaluated but never certain that the information gleaned from it is an accurate representation of the physical reality it was derived from.

[Dr. Frank fan]

I have made this point many times. What's the definition of "average"? Even if you settle on one definition, showing that this "average temperature" goes up might mean little. It may be that some other measure of "average temperature" goes down.

And even if you ignore this guy's point about nonequilibrium and just accept the most straightforward definition - what most people think of as "average" - even that is very problematic. The straightforward definition would say something like: take the temperature of every point on the earth, add 'em up, and divide by the number of points. (Rather: take the normalized surface-integral of the temperature function over the earth's surface.)

But how in the heck do you do that? It's not like we have a thermometer sitting on each square-inch, square-foot, or even square-mile of the earth. We simple don't know what the temperature is in most places. What about out in the middle of the ocean? (Do you have any idea how HUGE the Pacific Ocean is?) We have to rely on shipping routes, or infer the temperature from satellite data, which relies on a model, which may be wrong.

In reality, we only measure "the temperature" on some tiny tiny fraction of the globe, at a bunch of points. So in practice what people have to do is interpolate what the temperature is likely to be in between those points. And then take the "average" of that. But that interpolation process embodies a model in itself.

In other words, even gauging something as seemingly straightforward as the "average temperature" relies upon models. Even if it's today's "average temperature", to say nothing of the "average temperature in 1900 or 1400.

This is something that few people apprehend.