According to Bill Nye, the science guy:
“Climate Change is a real and serious issue.”
“Earth’s climate has changed throughout history. Most of these slight changes are caused by small variations in the earth’s orbit.”
These small variations in orbit that influence the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth, are known as Milankovitch cycles.
A corresponding variation in temperature of up to 6°C is not “slight.”
Glaciation cycles are not by any means, “slight.”
However, because they occur over thousands of years, being glacial, they are also not by any means, abrupt.
Not abrupt like this:
Other changes, not mentioned by Bill, are the ones caused by variations in the solar cycle length:
Solar cycle length (red) vs Northern Hemisphere temperature (blue) (Stauning 2011).
These correlate well with changes in temperature over much shorter duration than glacial cycles.
Correlate well, that is, until around 1975.
“…but climate change as we know it today is characterized by an abrupt increase in the earth’s temperature. It is estimated to have gotten one point two to one point four degrees Fahrenheit warmer in just the last century. Ten out of the last thirteen years were the warmest on record. Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that this new tendency is not caused by the variations of the earth’s orbit but rather very likely caused by human activities. That means you and me.”
Me and him, and I suppose, you. If everyone is guilty, no one is guilty as the Italians say.
“Modern human activities have increased the release of non-naturally occurring greenhouse gases because we have stepped up our demand for burning fossil fuels. The composition of greenhouse gases traps heat radiated from the Sun. The more heat they trap, the warmer our planet gets and as our planet gets warmer we begin to feel the effects.”
Carbon dioxide as one of the three primary radiation absorbing constituents in the atmosphere (along with water vapour and ozone) has been increasing in concentration since the beginning of the last century. As every schoolchild knows, its effect is to decrease radiative loss to space via the greenhouse effect, and to warm the earth.
There does seem to be a definite upturn in CO2 levels from around 1960 that correlates with the spike in temperatures.
In this video depicting CO2 levels in the atmosphere over 1 year, 2006 we can readily observe that this gas is primarily emitted in the northern hemisphere, as one might expect.
NASA - A Year in the Life of Earth's CO2
This would seem to sit well with the heat signature revealed in this NASA GISS map below showing the trend in temperatures annually (Jan-Dec) from the period 1979 - 2006.
It is clear that the warming is predominantly a northern hemisphere and particularly Arctic phenomenon.
However, the video only showed us CO2 over 1 year, 2006. Let us now look at how measurements of this gas vary over different latitudes covering the period from 1979 to 2006 as in this video below:
CO2 as a gas, although emitted mostly in the northern hemisphere, is dispersed evenly throughout the globe by the atmospheric circulation within the space of a year. This does not sit well with the heat signature of the planet covering a period of 27 years.
This even spread does not correlate with the uneven distribution of global temperature changes.
If CO2 were solely responsible for the warming we should see:
Warming of the Troposphere, the lower part of the atmosphere, and a cooling of the Stratosphere as heat is prevented from reaching this level.
Equal warming during the night as during the day.
More warming in winter.
More warming at the poles than at the equator.
All the points except for the last one are what we have actually observed.
It can hardly be said that both poles are warming more than the equator.
By the methods of observation and exclusion we have established that this thermodynamic footprint points towards something other than CO2 alone.
We know that Arctic surface air temperatures have increased by around 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) since 1976 whilst the Antarctic has increased by 0.35 °C (0.6 °F). That’s a 4-times greater increase in the North pole than the South pole.
What else could account for this uneven pattern?
A potential candidate is Soot.
Scientists have been finding soot, or black carbon as it is technically known, in the Arctic.
It has been suggested that as much as 45% or more of the warming in the Arctic since 1976 has been due to this black carbon. These particles absorb solar radiation and have a strong warming influence both in the atmosphere and on the surface where they counteract the albedo effect of the ice.
The Dog in the Night-Time
Eyebrows would be raised if it were to be disclosed just how much, during the 70’s, and further back, prominent scientists, government agencies and the banking and industrial oligarchs that owned them, were interested in raising global temperatures by means of such schemes as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers and altering cloud formation in order to ward off a supposed ice age, and of course, profit immeasurably.
In 1975, Newsweek published an article, in which the following was written:
“Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.” Emphasis mine
1975, the year before 1976, the date from which, 45% or more of the warming in the Arctic has been estimated to have occurred due to deposition of Black Carbon on the Arctic ice.
Further back, in 1972, a paper was written by Dr William Gray on the use of carbon dust (soot) for the purposes of climate modification.
This would involve ground based generators dispensing black carbon into the boundary layer just above the ice. The particles would absorb both incoming solar radiation and that reflected by the snow and warm the air just above the ice by means of convection.
If a deliberate, yet viable and clandestine attempt to melt the warm the Arctic was being made in alignment with Gray’s proposals, then black carbon would have been emplaced by means of ground based generators dispensing the particles in the boundary layer above the ice. The particles would then fall onto the surface. The Arctic ocean, when frozen and during its annual thaw, would also receive this treatment.
Gray studied the carbon dust smoke plumes generated by black carbon plants and petroleum fires and found them to be typical of the type of carbon plume which would be used for weather modification.
Perhaps Gray’s ground based dispensers are in place in the form of flare stacks contributing their carbon dust plumes in the Arctic to a degree around 20 times greater than anywhere else in the world in a region that is 5 times more sensitive.
“So it’s not just a warming climate that’s beating back the ice floes; it’s the soot generated from myriad industrial operations in the region. Of course, as the ice melts, more and more of those industries will set up shop in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, etc, and spew more and more soot onto the embattled ice.”
It is important to emphasize the fact that whilst Black Carbon levels have been increasing south of 71° N, they have been decreasing north of that latitude. This suggests that soot emitted within the Arctic Circle is the prime culprit. Gas flaring, for some reason, seems to contribute from around 42% to 52% of Black Carbon in this region, north of 66° N, more than it does in the rest of the world, where it contributes around 3%.
Having established that black carbon north of 70°N in the Arctic has declined since 1990, we can apply the method of exclusion and rule out long-range transport of black carbon from the former Soviet Union, Europe, North America and east Asia as a factor in the unprecedented warming.
We can also infer that the burden of black carbon south of 70°N is the result of emissions from within the Arctic circle itself.
Going back even further to 1970, we find a paper a written by Wallace Murcray.
He observed that contrails were becoming more frequent and might have an effect on the underlying heat economy. He even linked this observation to projects for modifying the climate discussed by scientists such as Fletcher in the 60s and speculated that they were already underway.
“The writer himself has seen instances in which a single contrail seemed to grow until it became an overcast covering the whole sky. If the contrail were indeed responsible, which is by no means certain, this would constitute definite proof that contrails are capable of a significant effect on local weather, and even possibly on global climate, if such occurrences are widespread and frequent.”
“The possible consequences of this are considerable, in fact, it seems probable that one of the projects for modifying the global climate discussed by Fletcher (1965), namely modification of the cloud cover over the polar basin by cloud seeding, is already underway, although the scale is still more modest than he envisioned.”
If all this sounds familiar, it’s because it is.
Modification of cloud cover by means of aircraft dispensing aerosols which cause artificial cirrus clouds to blanket the sky is a topic that more and more people are becoming aware of.
We know what they are referring to.
Those ubiquitous trails that expand and blot out our skies from horizon to horizon.
In this paper written in 1969 by J.O. Fletcher for the Rand Corporation, Fletcher discusses modification of cloud cover over the North Polar Basin by Cloud Seeding. The intent of such an operation is quite clearly for causing a warming to melt the Arctic ice.
“It has for example been noted that the creation or dissipation of high cloudiness has an enormous influence on the heat budget of the atmosphere and of the surface. It is estimated that it would take only sixty C-5 aircraft to deliver 1kg per km2 per day over the entire Arctic Basin (10 to the 7 km2). Thus, it is a large but not impossible task to seed such enormous areas.”
Clearly, the use of aircraft to seed clouds, the higher the more effective, as a means to warm the underlying atmosphere and surface was seriously considered at least as far back as 1969.
"Ice free Arctic Ocean
The largest scale enterprise that has been discussed is that of transforming the Arctic into an ice-free ocean. As was noted earlier, this has been carefully studied by the staff of the Main Geophysical Observatory in Leningrad. The central question is the stability of the ensuing global climatic regime. This question cannot be adequately evaluated until global climate simulation models are better developed and suitable simulations performed.
There is also a certain amount of uncertainty in regard to the engineering feasibility of removing the Arctic pack ice. It is possible that the capacity of the present technology may be sufficient to accomplish this task, but this has not been established.
Three basic approaches have been proposed ( Fletcher, 1965): (1) influencing the surface reflectivity of the ice to cause more absorption of solar heat; (2) large-scale modification of Arctic cloud conditions by seeding; (3) increasing the inflow of warm Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean."
We have observed the increase in cloud cover over the Arctic and its consequent warming impact.
“Overall, relationships between ice, temperature, and clouds indicate that cloud changes in recent decades may enhance the warming of the Arctic and may be acting to accelerate the decline of Arctic sea ice.” Emphasis mine
Spatial distribution of trends in cloud cover over twenty years. Provided by Axel J. Schweiger.
Looking at the change in Arctic cloud cover in spring, we can see that there has been a roughly 10% increase from the period 1980 (73%) to 2005 (83%). This linear change has overridden the effects of the Arctic oscillation.
Time series of seasonally averaged cloud fraction over the arctic seas in spring (March, April, May). Provided by Axel J. Schweiger.
In the regions 60°N to 60°S there has been an increase in global cirrus cloud coverage and a decrease in global cumulus cloud coverage to correlate with the unprecedented global warming we have experienced since the mid-seventies.
The High Resolution Infrared Radiometer Sounder (HIRS) polar orbiting satellite data as reported by Wylie et al (1994) and Wylie and Menzel (1999) found that in the region 60°N to 60°S, over the period from 1985 to 2001, the high clouds, which have an overall warming effect, had increased globally by 1.95% on average, per decade whilst the lower, with an overall cooling influence, had decreased by 1.7% per decade.