https://expose-news.com/2022/07/21/global-temp-climate-emergency-is-a-con/

BY ON JULY 21, 2022 • ( LEAVE A COMMENT )

Official Government Data Shows an alarming rapid rise in temperature over 140 years. NASA offers a graph of global temperature for each year from 1880 to the present which shows that we are in a runaway warming trend that constitutes a “climate emergency.”  It’s a statistical sleight of hand. The widely cited NASA global temperature graph is highly magnified and visually misleading. But that hasn’t stopped corporate media from using NASA’s data to inform their readers of a “climate emergency.”

In an article, EverythingClimate (“EC”) demonstrated how, by manipulating how data appears on a chart, a “climate emergency” is manufactured.  Although it’s not clear when the article was published, EC uses the example of a Guardian article from January 2020 which may indicate it was written in the same year.

Irrespective of the date it was written or published, EC’s article is as relevant then as it is today, especially in the context of “record” temperatures over the first couple of days this week in the UK.  And at the very least, what this article proves is we should question everything corporate media is promoting.  Corporate media have long lost their purpose of being sources of unbiased journalism and providing the public with the facts they need to know.

EC is a website covering both sides of the climate debate. It is devoted to cataloguing, evaluating and publishing information concerning scientific theories of global warming.

Figure 1. Comparison of how global surface temperature is presented, the top is anomaly data magnified to a narrow temperature range, as presented by the media, the bottom is the same data, presented in absolute temperature, in the range of normal human experience.

Republished from EverythingClimate

Pro: Official Government Data Shows an Alarming Rapid Rise in Temperature Over 140 years

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (“GISS”) is the original organisation to raise the warning on global temperature increases, due to increasing carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, during an address to the US Senate by Dr. James Hansen in June 19881.

NASA GISS maintains a website where the data and graphs derived from that data are publicly available. They say:

 

They offer a graph of global temperature for each year from 1880 to the present as seen below.

Figure 2. Land-ocean temperature index, 1880 to present, with base period 1951-1980. The solid black line is the global annual mean and the solid red line is the five-year lowess smooth. The grey shading represents the total (LSAT and SST) annual uncertainty at a 95% confidence interval and is available for download. [More information on the updated uncertainty model can be found here: Lenssen et al. (2019).]

This particular graph (Figure 2) is the most cited and referenced graph of its kind in the world, depicting a sharp rise in global temperature over the 140 years from 1880 to 2020. It shows that we are in a runaway warming trend that constitutes a “climate emergency”.

Media outlets understand and have adopted the term “climate emergency” and use it more frequently in headlines. In a 2020 article, seen below, they use data from NASA GISS to inform their readers.

Headline from The Guardian Newspaper, 15 Jan 2020

 

 

Figure 3. NASA GISS global temperature anomaly data plotted by The Guardian newspaper 15 Jan 2020

The term “climate emergency” has seen a surge in use ever since its awareness grew after being used by the media to describe what appears to be a rapid global temperature rise.

From Wikipedia:

 

 

The steep slope of the graph makes clear that Earth’s temperature is rising so quickly that it constitutes an emergency requiring immediate action.

Con: The widely cited NASA global temperature graph is highly magnified and visually misleading

Note that the Guardian article cites:

“The average temperature in 2019 was about 1.1C above the average from 1850-1900, before large-scale fossil fuel burning began.”

The entire graph and temperature data set from NASA GISS is displaying just a small change of 1.1°C of temperature, which is highly magnified to show the trend. Because this small temperature change is magnified, it gives the false impression of having a steeply rising slope. For the unobservant, that steep slope looks like a dangerous trend that would constitute a “climate emergency”.

Note the two graphs below. Figure 4 shows how global warming is depicted in the media from NASA GISS data (such as seen above in the Guardian article), plotting a narrow temperature range to show a magnified graph.

Figure 4. (Click to enlarge). NASA GISS Global Land-ocean temperature anomaly index, 1880 to present, with the base period 1951-1980 Source data:
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4/graph_data/Global_Mean_Estimates_based_on_Land_and_Ocean_Data/graph.txt

Figure 5 below shows the exact same data when plotted on the scale of human temperature experience, such as the range of temperature we experience yearly from winter to summer. This is done by removing the anomaly calculation from the GISS data, using the agreed-upon baseline temperature:

 

 

Simply using an Excel Spreadsheet allows us to add that 57.2°F temperature back to the NASA GISS anomaly data value. You can download and examine the spreadsheet here for yourself: GISSinabsolute2020.xlsx or Download

The result of that process gives you Figure 5:

Figure 5 (click to enlarge). NASA GISS Global Land-ocean temperature anomaly index, 1880 to present, with the base period 1951-1980 plotted on the scale of human temperature experience such as the range of temperature we experience yearly from winter to summer. Source data:
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4/graph_data/Global_Mean_Estimates_based_on_Land_and_Ocean_Data/graph.txt
Data converted back to original absolute temperature values using Excel.

Figure 5 shows a slow, and gradual temperature rise in actual absolute temperatures over the last 140 years. The difference with Figure 4 is striking and doesn’t look alarming at all.

If you were presented with Figure 5 as proof of an impending “climate emergency” would it be as concerning as Figure 4 or the NASA GISS graph commonly cited in the media?

In the article Lessons on How to Lie with Statistics by Will Koehrsen Jul 28, 2019, he makes the following point:

 

 

 

 

Figure 6. Interest rates plotted on different scales. Graphs by Will Koehrsen

Just like in the GISS temperature graph that uses a non-zero starting point for the Y-axis, the first Figure 6 graph on the left suggests interest rates are rising dramatically. But, when plotted in the full context of the data, on the right, the rise in interest rates does not look concerning at all.

The same misleading process is on display with the NASA GISS temperature graph comparison in Figures 4 and 5.

Magnified and scary-looking temperature data aside, many scientists don’t believe we have a “climate emergency” at all even though high-schooler Greta Thunberg is impassioned enough to present her concerns to the United Nations3.

But some 500 scholars and scientists say there’s no “climate emergency” at all.

 

 

Clearly, the global temperature data does not support the idea of a “climate emergency”, because when you view it on the proper scale of normal human experience, the steep rise in temperature disappears. And clearly, 500 knowledgeable people of science say there’s no need to worry.

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