5 ms·

When you look at the chart, it's odd that the temperature rise started only in the 1980s. Or at least what you can see in the chart. People have been burning wo

by leobg 3y ago

When you look at the chart, it's odd that the temperature rise started only in the 1980s. Or at least what you can see in the chart. People have been burning wood and coal for centuries. The industrial revolution happened in the 19th century. There were railroads and airplanes. And big industry in the 1950s and 60s. So it's what we are seeing there. Just the delayed reaction toall of that? Or is there something especially grave that happened immediately before the 1980s?

lm28469 3y ago
We tripled our oil use between 50 and 80, and there is some inertia
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
That's just the point that it crosses the average temp for the 20th century and crosses over to being above that average. It's climbing before that too.
defrost 3y ago
The number of people burning wood and oil has increased during that time, the total volume of CO2 released by human activity has steadily increased since the industrial revolution. If you look at the charts again you'll see the temp. has been rising more and more in response since the industrial revolution. As a peer comment noted, you can ignore the 0 degree line, the article uses two different epoch markers, these are just arbitary convention.
mutated_quant 3y ago
Part of the dramatic rise occurring after the 1970s is a direct response to the clean air / pollution legislation that started getting passed in western countries. Pollution seeds the air with potent cloud condensation nuclei, creating a higher average cloud cover, and reflecting more shortwave solar radiation. We've got cleaner healthier air, but less cloudy. I believe there was also a noticeable effect from the pollution decrease when global shipping dropped during covid, you had less cloud cover from ship trails, and more solar radiation reaching the surface. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05122-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05122-0 2022 Nature article on the phenomena.
- esafak 3y ago
  Not surprisingly, deliberately polluting it again is a proposed method of reducing global warming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injectio...
  - ImHereToVote 3y ago
    This mitigation strategy is so obvious I'm surprised that this isn't implemented already.
  - leobg 3y ago
    Yeah, I mean, wasn't the worst year to be alive some year after a volcano eruption? So, let’s geo engineer this against global warming and hope our calculations pan out…
abdullahkhalids 3y ago
There are many counteracting natural processes on Earth that keep the climate relatively stable in all directions. For instance, oceans can just absorb quite a large amount of CO2, thus preventing a greenhouse gas effect from occurring in the atmosphere. Polar icecaps also melt and that absorbs a huge amount of energy, stabilizing the temperature. Eventually, many of these processes become depleted and global average temperature starts to rise.
- felixmeziere 3y ago
  Finally someone that has it right -_-'
gizmo686 3y ago
Eyeballing the graph, it looks to me like the increase begins around 1910. The red portion of the graph starts later because of the arbitrary temperature they decided to use as the 0 point.
smashed 3y ago
I see an upward line starting from the 1920's onward if you focus on the general trend.
lucubratory 3y ago
World population was 2 billion in 1930, 3 billion in 1960, and 4.5 billion in 1980. Today the world population is a bit under 8 billion. The Earth could easily support many more than 8 billion people with the right technology install base, I don't want to give the impression that population is an issue in itself, it isn't. However, with the predominant technologies being oil-based transportation, coal-based power, and carbon intensive agriculture throughout that period and continuing today, the size of our economy (enabled by the size of our population) is capable of a much greater degree of warming through GHG emissions than we were in the 1960s, let alone the 1800s.
- AlienRobot 3y ago
  This is such a terrible situation. We need depopulation but every country's economy seems to be based on infinite growth and can't deal with an aging population. I'm scared the best case scenario will end up being "the world gets so hot it kills enough people to stop getting hotter." I don't know a lot about climate change but I don't thing the Earth will simply reset when enough people die, considering the melting ice caps won't just unmelt because of that.
  - rplnt 3y ago
    We don't need depopulation. We just need to stop eating cows, riding cars and planes so much, and buying everything from across the world. (and dozens if not millions other things, neither of which is harder than depopulation)
    - zelphirkalt 3y ago
      While this ist part of what we need to do, you are forgetting the industry sector, as the first and biggest polution source, that provides living standard to us, and that needs to be regulated the most for the biggest effect.
  - lisper 3y ago
    That's exactly right. We are taking carbon that was sequestered under ground over a period of hundreds of millions of years and releasing it back into the atmosphere in just a few hundred years. That genie will not go quietly back into the bottle.
joakleaf 3y ago
The chart is relative to the 20th century average, so even though values before 1980 are less than 0, it doesn’t mean warming hadn’t started. It is just that around 1980 we got clearly above the average of the 20th century. Imagine this wasn’t deviation from average, but absolute values and ignore the blue/red colors. Then notice the trend — it is getting warmer through all the 20th century. I think, I can easily see a trend line already from 1910.
wsc981 3y ago
Cities have grown and many temperature measuring stations report higher temperatures as a result. As buildings trap heat as well as concrete.
doubloon 3y ago
My first guess is that Mao Tse Tung basically kept China in a pre-industrial communist fever dream until he died and the reformers, like Deng Xiaopeng, took over in the late 70s. Then China, a nation of 1 billion people, did a speed-run on the last 300 years of Western industrial history in about 30 years. At the same time the US underwent a mass de-regulation and neo-Globalization was off to the races. edit - good example, Toyota. Right around the 70s/80s they became a massive multinational exporter. This is enabled by pax Americana and neo-liberal free trade policies which, for example, allowed Toyota to import to the US in large numbers and also build factories inside the US itself, multiply by several other companies in several other countries, massive growth. Before this time global trade was far more limited. https://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/data/automotive_business/sales/sales_volume/overseas/index.html https://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75ye... If we take the stock market as an analogy for energy (and hence pollution) there is just a massive explosion starting around 1980. people forget that the stock market used to be kind of boring and went down alot. https://www.macrotrends.net/1319/dow-jones-100-year-historical-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/1319/dow-jones-100-year-historic... edit - another good one. The US trade balance. I.e. the rise of the foreign nations who had "interesting" currency policies and manufacturing exports designed for the US, in order to get USD so they could participate in globalism, buy oil (sold mostly in USD), and modernize. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization#/media/File:U.S._Trade_Balance_(1895%E2%80%932015)_and_Trade_Policies.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization#/media/File:U.S.... Also GDP of the Asian Tigers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Asian_Tigers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Asian_Tigers
blindriver 3y ago
I think that’s because that’s when we started having weather satellites that could take consistent measurements. I really find it hard to believe you can compare temperature measurements “globally” before 1950s with any sort of consistency or accuracy. Today’s infrared thermometers for fevers have a 2F accuracy. You’re telling me that you can calculate temperatures from around the world pre-1950s and trust that it’s consistent and accurate?
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  Capacities of your specific chinese broken thermometer doesn't tell much about how scientists measured temperatures decades ago, does it. And 2F spread ain't right, doctors use rather precise instruments that need some experience to be used correctly though, we have one at home too for kids since wife is a doctor (not a pediatrician but its manageable).
- defrost 3y ago
  > You’re telling me that you can calculate temperatures from around the world pre-1950s and trust that it’s consistent and accurate? Consistent and within an envelope of accuracy, sure. Today we can even compare high resolution, many measurement point global tempreture distributions against what would be projected if we only had the same stations from the 1850s - 1950s. Recall that pre GPS navigation was highly reliant on accurate time pieces which were highly reliant on accurate tempreture, humidity, air pressure readings. From the 1850s onward there are highly reliable records from scientific grade instruments at trading ports about the globe.
- Roark66 3y ago
  >I really find it hard to believe you can compare temperature measurements “globally” before 1950s with any sort of consistency You're right to be skeptical and we can't. There isn't even a single "global temperature" today. There is, for example, a global surface temperature measured by satellites and ground stations, except where there is cloud cover and no ground stations. It is extrapolated in such places based on mathematical models. Also a satellite passes only so often across certain area (or takes low resolutions photos if at geostationary orbit) so data is further extrapolated in time. And that is only the surface. What about the depths of the oceans and the thickness of the atmosphere? Is this what is meant when they make claims like "hottest 12 months" on record? If yes, it tells you nothing about true "global temperature". "Global temperature" today is a mathematical construct, a model based on limited sensor data. A LOT is extrapolated in that model. How exactly you do that affects the results you get. We don't have consistent measurements across the thickness of the atmosphere and depth of the oceans. There are sporadic measurements, like satellite measurement of cloud cover temperature and knowing how high this cloud cover is, but what's going on below and above? It's all filled in by "the models". Models people wrote to behave how they expect they should behave.

by leobg 3y ago

lm28469 3y ago

We tripled our oil use between 50 and 80, and there is some inertia

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

That's just the point that it crosses the average temp for the 20th century and crosses over to being above that average. It's climbing before that too.

defrost 3y ago

The number of people burning wood and oil has increased during that time, the total volume of CO2 released by human activity has steadily increased since the industrial revolution. If you look at the charts again you'll see the temp. has been rising more and more in response since the industrial revolution. As a peer comment noted, you can ignore the 0 degree line, the article uses two different epoch markers, these are just arbitary convention.

mutated_quant 3y ago

Part of the dramatic rise occurring after the 1970s is a direct response to the clean air / pollution legislation that started getting passed in western countries. Pollution seeds the air with potent cloud condensation nuclei, creating a higher average cloud cover, and reflecting more shortwave solar radiation. We've got cleaner healthier air, but less cloudy. I believe there was also a noticeable effect from the pollution decrease when global shipping dropped during covid, you had less cloud cover from ship trails, and more solar radiation reaching the surface. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05122-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05122-0 2022 Nature article on the phenomena.

esafak 3y ago
Not surprisingly, deliberately polluting it again is a proposed method of reducing global warming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injectio...
- ImHereToVote 3y ago
  This mitigation strategy is so obvious I'm surprised that this isn't implemented already.
- leobg 3y ago
  Yeah, I mean, wasn't the worst year to be alive some year after a volcano eruption? So, let’s geo engineer this against global warming and hope our calculations pan out…

abdullahkhalids 3y ago

There are many counteracting natural processes on Earth that keep the climate relatively stable in all directions. For instance, oceans can just absorb quite a large amount of CO2, thus preventing a greenhouse gas effect from occurring in the atmosphere. Polar icecaps also melt and that absorbs a huge amount of energy, stabilizing the temperature. Eventually, many of these processes become depleted and global average temperature starts to rise.

felixmeziere 3y ago
Finally someone that has it right -_-'

gizmo686 3y ago

Eyeballing the graph, it looks to me like the increase begins around 1910. The red portion of the graph starts later because of the arbitrary temperature they decided to use as the 0 point.

smashed 3y ago

I see an upward line starting from the 1920's onward if you focus on the general trend.

lucubratory 3y ago

World population was 2 billion in 1930, 3 billion in 1960, and 4.5 billion in 1980. Today the world population is a bit under 8 billion. The Earth could easily support many more than 8 billion people with the right technology install base, I don't want to give the impression that population is an issue in itself, it isn't. However, with the predominant technologies being oil-based transportation, coal-based power, and carbon intensive agriculture throughout that period and continuing today, the size of our economy (enabled by the size of our population) is capable of a much greater degree of warming through GHG emissions than we were in the 1960s, let alone the 1800s.

AlienRobot 3y ago
This is such a terrible situation. We need depopulation but every country's economy seems to be based on infinite growth and can't deal with an aging population. I'm scared the best case scenario will end up being "the world gets so hot it kills enough people to stop getting hotter." I don't know a lot about climate change but I don't thing the Earth will simply reset when enough people die, considering the melting ice caps won't just unmelt because of that.
- rplnt 3y ago
  We don't need depopulation. We just need to stop eating cows, riding cars and planes so much, and buying everything from across the world. (and dozens if not millions other things, neither of which is harder than depopulation)
  - zelphirkalt 3y ago
    While this ist part of what we need to do, you are forgetting the industry sector, as the first and biggest polution source, that provides living standard to us, and that needs to be regulated the most for the biggest effect.
- lisper 3y ago
  That's exactly right. We are taking carbon that was sequestered under ground over a period of hundreds of millions of years and releasing it back into the atmosphere in just a few hundred years. That genie will not go quietly back into the bottle.

joakleaf 3y ago

The chart is relative to the 20th century average, so even though values before 1980 are less than 0, it doesn’t mean warming hadn’t started. It is just that around 1980 we got clearly above the average of the 20th century. Imagine this wasn’t deviation from average, but absolute values and ignore the blue/red colors. Then notice the trend — it is getting warmer through all the 20th century. I think, I can easily see a trend line already from 1910.

wsc981 3y ago

Cities have grown and many temperature measuring stations report higher temperatures as a result. As buildings trap heat as well as concrete.

doubloon 3y ago

My first guess is that Mao Tse Tung basically kept China in a pre-industrial communist fever dream until he died and the reformers, like Deng Xiaopeng, took over in the late 70s. Then China, a nation of 1 billion people, did a speed-run on the last 300 years of Western industrial history in about 30 years. At the same time the US underwent a mass de-regulation and neo-Globalization was off to the races. edit - good example, Toyota. Right around the 70s/80s they became a massive multinational exporter. This is enabled by pax Americana and neo-liberal free trade policies which, for example, allowed Toyota to import to the US in large numbers and also build factories inside the US itself, multiply by several other companies in several other countries, massive growth. Before this time global trade was far more limited. https://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/data/automotive_business/sales/sales_volume/overseas/index.html https://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75ye... If we take the stock market as an analogy for energy (and hence pollution) there is just a massive explosion starting around 1980. people forget that the stock market used to be kind of boring and went down alot. https://www.macrotrends.net/1319/dow-jones-100-year-historical-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/1319/dow-jones-100-year-historic... edit - another good one. The US trade balance. I.e. the rise of the foreign nations who had "interesting" currency policies and manufacturing exports designed for the US, in order to get USD so they could participate in globalism, buy oil (sold mostly in USD), and modernize. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization#/media/File:U.S._Trade_Balance_(1895%E2%80%932015)_and_Trade_Policies.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization#/media/File:U.S.... Also GDP of the Asian Tigers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Asian_Tigers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Asian_Tigers

blindriver 3y ago

I think that’s because that’s when we started having weather satellites that could take consistent measurements. I really find it hard to believe you can compare temperature measurements “globally” before 1950s with any sort of consistency or accuracy. Today’s infrared thermometers for fevers have a 2F accuracy. You’re telling me that you can calculate temperatures from around the world pre-1950s and trust that it’s consistent and accurate?

saiya-jin 3y ago
Capacities of your specific chinese broken thermometer doesn't tell much about how scientists measured temperatures decades ago, does it. And 2F spread ain't right, doctors use rather precise instruments that need some experience to be used correctly though, we have one at home too for kids since wife is a doctor (not a pediatrician but its manageable).
defrost 3y ago
> You’re telling me that you can calculate temperatures from around the world pre-1950s and trust that it’s consistent and accurate? Consistent and within an envelope of accuracy, sure. Today we can even compare high resolution, many measurement point global tempreture distributions against what would be projected if we only had the same stations from the 1850s - 1950s. Recall that pre GPS navigation was highly reliant on accurate time pieces which were highly reliant on accurate tempreture, humidity, air pressure readings. From the 1850s onward there are highly reliable records from scientific grade instruments at trading ports about the globe.
Roark66 3y ago
>I really find it hard to believe you can compare temperature measurements “globally” before 1950s with any sort of consistency You're right to be skeptical and we can't. There isn't even a single "global temperature" today. There is, for example, a global surface temperature measured by satellites and ground stations, except where there is cloud cover and no ground stations. It is extrapolated in such places based on mathematical models. Also a satellite passes only so often across certain area (or takes low resolutions photos if at geostationary orbit) so data is further extrapolated in time. And that is only the surface. What about the depths of the oceans and the thickness of the atmosphere? Is this what is meant when they make claims like "hottest 12 months" on record? If yes, it tells you nothing about true "global temperature". "Global temperature" today is a mathematical construct, a model based on limited sensor data. A LOT is extrapolated in that model. How exactly you do that affects the results you get. We don't have consistent measurements across the thickness of the atmosphere and depth of the oceans. There are sporadic measurements, like satellite measurement of cloud cover temperature and knowing how high this cloud cover is, but what's going on below and above? It's all filled in by "the models". Models people wrote to behave how they expect they should behave.