Do We Know Earth’s Global Temperature?

American Thinker ^ | May 1, 2021 | Jonathon Moseley

[Moseley]

The next target of mainstream media propaganda is to convince the public that human industry is causing climate change. CNN insiders boasted about that to James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas on hidden camera (after bragging about defeating Donald Trump’s re-election).

Marjorie Taylor Greene is preparing to debate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Some of us will worry whether the debate about the Green New Deal will focus on the most important points. There are a thousand issues and sub-issues. It is easy to get lost or sidetracked.

I suggest laying the axe to the root: Humans have never actually measured the temperature of planet Earth. Let’s just start with that.

Is the Earth getting warmer, cooler, or staying the same? Without knowing the planet’s overall temperature, we cannot say.

Weather stations were never intended to measure global temperatures. They were designed and installed to assist ships and airplanes with navigation – not to measure the Earth on a planetary scale. The limits of scientific measurements must be kept in mind. There are approximately 10,000 localized weather stations at fixed locations on land, and around 2,000 marine buoys and mobile stations.

How could we measure the planet? Politicians and journalists understand that statistics require random sampling, which is commonly used in public opinion surveys. We cannot predict how roughly 153 million registered voters are going to vote in an election by sampling only about 1,000 to 1,500 people unless the sample is truly random. We must follow strict statistical methodologies for taking samples smaller than the total population.

[Moseley]

Temperature measurements at fixed locations cannot predict the Earth as a whole. The Earth’s surface is 196.9 million square miles. It is a sphere 24,901 miles in circumference. The surface is 70% oceans and lakes and vast, mostly untraveled oceans like the Pacific or Southern Atlantic or the Arctic Sea. Fatal flaw number one is that people cannot grasp how truly gigantic Earth is.

What if we actually measured the planet’s temperature? Of the Earth’s 196.9 million square miles, let’s say measuring a 20-mile by 20-mile area is more meaningful than every 1 square mile. So, the data set’s population is 492,250 measurements. A new sample, newly randomized, would have to be selected randomly each and every time someone measures Earth’s temperature.

The size of a random sample determines the margin of error. If we used a smaller sample size, the uncertainty would swamp the small temperature changes that the hypothesis is predicting over decades. The numbers would bounce around from year to year because of the small sample size, not because the Earth’s climate is actually changing.

Using a handy statistics calculator, we might have to randomly select 18,095 locations – different each time – to get a 0.85% margin of error at a confidence level of 98%. That means that if the global temperature is in the vicinity of 59 degrees Fahrenheit, the margin of error would be half a degree. But we are trying to track tiny changes year by year, so a sample size of 48,897 areas would be more meaningful, producing a margin of error of 3/10ths of a degree at a 98% confidence.

Measurements would have to be taken on the same day, at the same time of day. This is because weather travels. When a violent cold front roars through, the temperature can drop 10 to 20 degrees in less than a day. Unless the measurements are taken at the same time on the same day, the result will be meaningless, because weather systems are always moving around the surface.

This could be done. Mobile weather stations could be airdropped – even by parachute – to randomly-selected locations. The Earth’s overall temperature could be sampled, say, once a year. Collect the small stations and use them again next year. The stations would get re-used.

[Moseley]

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE at AMERICAN THINKER

[Moseley]

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/05/do_we_know_earths_global_temperature.html

[palmer]

The atmosphere is in constant motion. When warmed, all gases move upwards towards outer space. When CO2 absorbs heat, it rises. Convection transports heat from the surface up to the thin air where jet airplanes cruise. Heat is radiated from there out into space.

I read the whole thing. This quote has one error: When CO2 absorbs heat, it rises

That is not correct. When CO2 absorbs heat, it "instantly" (for our purposes) transfers that heat to the bulk atmosphere, mainly O2 and N2. The whole parcel rises. The bigger point is correct which is that convection described in the article is the main mechanism for cooling the planet. More convection = more cooling. Thus the earth regulates it's own temperature as it gets warmer. There's no such regulation on the downside which is why cooling is so dangerous.

[FreedomPoster]

There’s also the issue of what is the proper average temperature of the world’s oceans, and what is it, now and historically. This has a HUGE impact on weather, yet is even more problematic to measure than average air temperature.

[palmer]

A very good point. The average was about 37F last time I checked. The cold water creation in the southern ocean and north Atlantic keeps the ocean cold. Other geographic configurations had less or none of that process, and the earth as a whole was much warmer

[ronnie raygun]

Here is the problem, you are debating an idiot like AOC

[alloysteel]

The great bulk of the ocean at a depth of 500 meters or more, is a pretty steady 38 degrees Fahrenheit or about 4 degrees Celsius, and that is a fact, Jack. Only the top layers of the ocean and surface waters, subject to solar warming, get much above this rather tight range, where all the evaporation of water into water vapor takes place.

The most important “greenhouse gas” by far, is water vapor, a highly variable constituent of the atmosphere. No matter HOW much carbon dioxide is warmed, it NEVER rises very high in the atmosphere. Water vapor, having a lower molecular weight than either O2 or N2, unlike CO2, which is a heavier molecular weight, rises quickly in the atmosphere, to stratospheric levels, where it becomes micro crystals of ice. The process of becoming ice takes a great deal of energy from the water vapor molecule, and this heat in turn radiates AWAY from the earth during the period of time that portion of the planet is turned away from the sun.

The micro crystals of ice, now being heavier than the rarefied oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere in which they are suspended, descend to lower levels, some eventually becoming rain, or snow, and in the process taking up a considerable amount of latent heat in the atmosphere.

A beautifully well-balanced equilibrium is achieved, with much of the earth staying in a very comfortable temperature range conducive to extended survival of most forms of plant and animal life.

Simple facts of physics and biology that should have been explained by the time the student has reached the eighth grade.

[mad_as_he$$]

bkmk

[Alberta's Child]

What if we actually measured the planet’s temperature? Of the Earth’s 196.9 million square miles, let’s say measuring a 20-mile by 20-mile area is more meaningful than every 1 square mile. So, the data set’s population is 492,250 measurements. A new sample, newly randomized, would have to be selected randomly each and every time someone measures Earth’s temperature.

The author’s general point is valid but on this one he’s flat-out wrong. Sampling in science isn’t like conducting a poll of voters that must be “random” every time. It’s more like measuring TV ratings using a Nielsen system with a small number of “test households” that doesn’t change. If you put a single weather station in the middle of Kansas and track the weather over a long period of time, the data you get will absolutely measure changes at this one location and MAY indicate changes for the nation as a whole. If you put the same arrangement in place at 100 different locations around the U.S. and the data show consistent trends, then you CAN make legitimate determinations about weather trends across the nation as a whole.

[HighSierra5]

I could debate AOC with half my brain tied behind my back. A little Rushbo limbo.

[palmer]

Water vapor, having a lower molecular weight than either O2 or N2, unlike CO2, which is a heavier molecular weight, rises quickly in the atmosphere, to stratospheric levels, where it becomes micro crystals of ice.

There's no separation of molecules in the atmopshere because their difference in weight is too minor. They stay mixed and equal temperature locally. Air containing more water vapor will be lighter and rise.

The process of becoming ice takes a great deal of energy from the water vapor molecule, and this heat in turn radiates AWAY from the earth

Yes, that's all correct. Heat is abosrbed during evaporation and becomes latent heat. Condensation and freezing at high altitudes releases latent heat where it can then radiate to space. That's the primary mechanism for cooling the planet.

[norwaypinesavage]

It’s actually quite simple: place a rectal thermometer in Washington DC.

[Graybeard58]

We must follow strict statistical methodologies for taking samples smaller than the total population.

...................................................

Like that will ever happen.

[zeestephen]

Re: "The great bulk of the ocean, at a depth of 500 meters or more, is a pretty steady 38 degrees Fahrenheit."

I have never understood that fact.

The average depth of the ocean is about 10,000 feet below sea level.

The walls of a 10,000 foot deep mine are about 150 degrees F because of geothermal heating.

It seems logical that the average temperature of the ocean floor - 70% of the Earth's surface - would be around 150 F.

Instead, the deepest water is usually the coldest water, and that water actually warms up as it moves toward the surface.

Any helpful thoughts on this issue?

Thank you.

[FreedomPoster]

Great point.

[FreedomPoster]

Anything that helps fend off the next glaciation is A Good Thing, I would say.

[Covenantor]

To paraphrase Dem House Speaker Tip O'Neill, "All earth's temperatures are local."

Here's a NASA satellite image of earth's ocean at one moment in time...

To speak of average or mean global temperatures is fatuous nonsense and to engage in any such discussion with man made global warming fascists is a fool's errand.

Source: https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/54229/global-sea-surface-temperature

Might as well include the refrigerator and freezer temps in defining the average temperature of ones house for setting a house thermostat. Or the temperature of a cook top range with all burners on...that can be in the 450°F +/- range.

[JeanLM]

Good analysis. When discussing CO2 green house theory I like to point out that Mars has 8x the amount CO2 in its atmosphere and similar land surface to Earth, but there is no green house effect because there is no water.

[Wuli]

I would like to see data, from ground collection stations, that separates data from any cities of 50,000 or more or from near airports, from all other data. Only then could we see what effect the heat sink of cities is having on the total data.

Also, all data needs to be separated by hemisphere, in order to see any difference between the hemispheres.