The characters in this seven-day dialogue are described in the Foreword. Please read it first to get a better appreciation of what they're saying.
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Froid: Why has the discourse changed? As you know, the issue started out as global warming, but it then morphed to climate change. Why is that? Have you ever asked yourself why the media stopped talking about global warming and switched to climate change?
Chaud: I haven't really asked myself the question. I simply assumed that global warming was part of climate change and so the subject had expanded. I didn't see anything wrong with that!
Froid: Neither did most people. You're in good company! The debate changed because despite the much higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere than in previous warming cycles, there is no global warming! The global temperature rise is within the same range of previous cycles! I can't stress that enough. CO2 levels are much higher than in earlier cycles, but not the temperature. It hasn't responded to the rapid atmospheric CO2 increase that scientists were predicting with their imperfect models!
So, what global warming are we talking about?
This glaring discrepancy discredits the earlier global warming claims; therefore, it's convenient to shift the debate and talk about the broader subject of climate change, where everything is mushy (no hard facts or evidence) and they can point the finger to any climatic event as an example of climate change. That was really smart public relations, but not smart science!
Chaud: Who are they?
Froid: Climate change has been institutionalized. There are many groups whose sole raison d'être is the study of climate change. I don't put them down because they're doing good work, which improves our knowledge and understanding of Mother Earth. However, they are dependent on governments and various foundations for financial support. So they have to justify their existence.
Chaud: So, why aren't temperatures higher during this warming cycle?
Froid: That's the question of the century! Nobody really knows. It could be just a temporary anomaly, the start of a new mini cooling cycle within the larger warming one, or the start of the new ice age. The timing is certainly about right for the latter. When we're talking of 100,000-year cycles, it's impossible to know exactly where we are in it. The length of a human life (100 years roughly), which is our period of interest, represents only a one thousandth part of the cycle. therefore, we certainly will not know with any great accuracy, when the current cycle ends and the next one begins.
Chaud: Have scientists identified any reasons for this hiatus in rising temperature?
Froid: The most obvious one is the sunspot cycle. Galileo Galilei first discovered sunspots in 1610, but it wasn't until 1849 that astronomers started recording them regularly and consistently. So, we have a long record of sunspot activity that confirms an 11-year cycle.
From 1849, the end of the little ice age, to 1958, which reached a peak of 250 sunspots, the cycle peaks increased pretty consistently. However, from 1958 to the present, with only a few exceptions, the peaks have been getting smaller. The last peak, in 2013, had only 100 sunspots. That's a significant decrease from 1958. Scientists have reconstructed the record from 1750 to 1849 from historical observations documented by various people, but there are a lot of gaps and consequently not as reliable. Nevertheless, it shows that during the little ice age sunspot activity reached a low peak of 100, as we have just experienced. The period between 1790 and 1830, when this low peak occurred, is referred to as the Dalton minimum.
Chaud: Is it possible that without the currently high CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere we could be experiencing a mini ice age?
Froid: It's possible, but we don't have any way of knowing. Between 1645 and 1715, a period referred to as the Maunder minimum, there was very little or no sunspot activity. If the present trend of decreasing sunspot activity continues, it's likely to usher in a period of cooling global temperatures. However, because of the high CO2 atmospheric levels, it may be unlikely that we would see a mini ice age any time soon, but we simply don't know.
Chaud: What you say sounds logical and reasonable, but I am baffled as to why I never heard of this stuff before.
Froid: I stopped paying attention to the media long time ago because they give us what the powers that be want us to hear and see. Mercifully, the Internet has empowered each of us to discover the truth for ourselves. There's a lot of information available at our fingertips, but one has to go searching for it.
Chaud: Why do atmospheric CO2 levels change during a climate cycle?
Froid: When the warming trend started 20,000 years ago, ocean water started releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere because its ability to hold it decreased with increasing temperature. As more of it entered the atmosphere, the warmer the earth got and the more CO2 was released from the ocean. The cycle was broken after the earth's orbit became increasingly elliptical (increasing eccentricity).
Conversely, when a cooling trend starts, the ocean's capability to hold CO2 increases and so atmospheric levels decrease. The more atmospheric levels decrease, the colder the earth gets, and the more of it is transferred to the ocean. The cycle is broken only after the earth's orbital eccentricity reaches a maximum.
This cycle, from zero eccentricity (perfect circle) to maximum eccentricity and back to zero, lasts 100,000 years, the same length of time from the beginning of an ice age to the beginning of the next one.
Chaud: Wow! That really gives a different meaning to the words Climate Change!
Froid: I had the same reaction when I read about the Milankovitch cycle and how well it correlated to the ice age cycle. Of course, there are another two Milankovitch cycles: one has to do with the inclination of the earth's orbital plane, which tilts so that the North Star changes from Vega to Polaris every 22,000 years; and the other is associated with the earth's axial tilt, which changes from 21.5 to 24.5 degrees every 41,000 years. These also affect the earth's climate, but not as much as the 100,000-year cycle. It's the eccentricity of the earth's orbit that triggers the ice ages!
Chaud: Getting back to the global warming hiatus, I had read about it, but everything I had seen simply dismissed it as an anomaly.
Froid: To global warmers, it has to be an anomaly because all of the climate-change models have failed to predict it. That was really egg in their faces, but ignoring data simply because they don't fit model predictions is not Science.
Science is wonderful because it's supported by facts. It takes many data to support a scientific theory, but it only takes one to disprove it. To the pseudo-scientists, the hiatus is just an anomaly: to real scientists it's something that has to be understood to improve the predictability of climate-change models.
Only through proper science will we know if we have a real problem or not. Therefore, we have to understand why the models failed to predict this effect. There's a lot more work to be done before science can provide us the answer! In the interim, the pseudo-scientists will fill the news pages with alchemy.
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CLIMATE CHANGE: what does it mean?
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