Climate Letter #303

Just some comments today, about a question of general interest. What is the best proof of all that our planet is indeed warming up? Quite simply, the best proof should depend on the best series of measurements that have been taken over an extended period of time, preferably a century or more. Further, we have to content ourselves with something less than the idea of warming applied to the globe in its entirety. No set of measurements can possibly tell us what is happening deep within the core, where the overwhelming bulk of planetary mass resides, and which by all evidence exists in an entirely molten state, unsuitable for life.

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What we do know is that a thick, rocky crust separates this molten interior from a relatively modest mix of material that extends outward as it merges with the vast reaches of empty space. The rocky crust happens to have great insulating properties, preventing all but a small amount of interior heat from leaking into the outer surface region. This condition has been favorable to the long-term presence of life within the surface layer. As humans we are thus prompted to focus on the independent temperature history and stability of just that outer layer, which includes a thin portion of crust itself exposed to the atmosphere. This is our “globe.”
The material outside of the crust consists primarily of liquid ocean waters and a gaseous atmosphere, plus lesser amounts of other water bodies, waters that have been frozen into ice, some crustal features and an assortment of biomass, living and decayed. In terms of density, and thus heat storage capacity, ocean waters far outweigh all of the other components, with the stretched out atmosphere coming in a distant second. Since water and air are both highly fluid, marked extensively by active currents, and highly interactive with respect to the transferring of heat, both are sure to participate, though not always evenly, in any trend of temperature change that applies to this region as a whole.
Accurately measuring actual temperatures of the two main components, ocean water and atmosphere, is a tricky matter because both are so far-reaching and constantly experiencing a state of flux. We are trying hard to do so, and getting better at it, but the farther back in time we go the more blurry are the results. Luckily, there is one thing we can measure, with considerable confidence, even over extended periods of time, right up to the current year. That is not temperature, but any change in average global sea level, which it so happens is quite relevant to changes in temperature.
That is because there are just two primary causes that we know of that can account for a rise in sea level. One is by a net melting trend of landlocked ice, the other by the physics of how of water always expands a bit as it warms. Each of these is unlikely to occur apart from a general framework of considerable quantities of heat being added to the combined system. We have been able to measure eight inches of sea level rise in just the past century, a not insubstantial amount, certainly enough to provide reasonable calculations of the amount of heat input required to cause it. In my view no better proof has been found that our globe is indeed warming up. We have even found some reasons for how and why this is happening, but that is another story, one that is not very comforting.
Carl

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