Late last week, I posted regarding a study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that predicts a 40 percent drop in Arctic sea ice by the year 2050, and it was followed by a post this week regarding the reports of minimum and maximum ice coverage in the arctic and antarctic, respectively. The posts invited (and, indeed, received) some intelligent discourse regarding the issue of global climate change and the study of sea ice coverage both via comments and email, and I am so very thankful this can be a forum for respectful and intelligent discussion - I truly hope that will continue here on a number of issues related to weather and climate. One phrase I've noticed that tends to be an abrasive choice of words in general public discussion is "natural cycles," sometimes used when referring to climate change and to global warming.
The term "natural cycles" seems to have become synonymous with "denial that humans are influencing global warming." I want to take a minute to clarify the term "natural cycles" and clarify why we as an ever more educated public should not only be accepting of the term, but truly embrace it as a normal part of climate change. Note, once again, that this does NOT mean I'm suggesting those with strong beliefs on the influence of humans in climate change abandon such beliefs - but instead suggesting that we as a society be open to the idea of natural cycles which are, for lack of a better term, quite natural!
Consider the planet Earth - a celestial body that is constantly in flux and a composite of solids, liquids, gases, flora and fauna that are constantly interacting with one another. Next consider the sun - a dynamic ball of gas also always in flux. These erupting, pulsing, metamorphosizing bodies have been in existence for literally billions of years - the earth, for example, is some four billion years young. Over the course of those four billion years, there have been major changes from the composite of the earth's surface to the gases that the atmosphere is comprised of. There have, of course, also been changes in weather and climate, which have seemingly accelerated in recent decades.
Next, consider phrases like "on record" that we hear almost daily - "the hottest summer on record," "the coldest winter on record," "the most snow in 24 hours ever on record," "the most tropical cyclones ever recorded," and so forth. What does this refer to and what does it mean? To answer this most simply, the phrase "on record" means that we as a human race have never recorded an event of such magnitude in that particular location...at least not in records that we know are accessible. So, the "hottest day on record" for a particular city is the hottest day ever recorded for that particular site.
An important follow-up question, though, is "how far back does the record keeping go?" For example, records at an old station like Boston date back to the late 1800s (though the observing site has changed a number of times) while records at a younger station like Rutland, VT, or Manchester, NH, only date back to the middle 1900s. As a result, a "record hot" day in Manchester may not be a "record hot" day in Boston at all - or even close! We saw this last week when both Rutland and Manchester challenged their record highs in the lower 90s while Boston came nowhere near the record high of 102. Records, it turns out, are relative.
Now apply this understanding to something like the record minimum ice coverage reported in the Arctic, or the record maximum ice coverage reported in the Antarctic. Yes, this makes a statement of how quickly ice is diminishing in the north and building in the south, but can we say that it's the least amount of ice EVER on the North Pole, or the greatest amount EVER in the South Pole? Of course not! Sea ice coverage, for example, is observed via satellites and good records began in 1979. On an earth four billion years in age (granted, water and ice haven't been around all four billion of those years, so for the sake of argument, let's make it only a billion years), how much time is represented in a 28 year window from 1979 to 2007? Obviously, the amount of time is laughably small. Looking at temperature records for an old station like Boston yields 120 years - more time than the satellite record but still an invisible time in the scale of the earth. Looking at temperature records in Europe provide a couple of hundred years of data in a few select spots - how does that match up against a billion years? You get the point here.
Now apply this to the phrase "natural cycles." In recent posts, I've asked the open ended question of whether records - and more importantly, computer models that predict the global climate and are run based on these records - are really reliable in an assessment of the earth. I asked, isn't it possible that sea ice, temperature, ocean temperature, tropical cyclones and other phenomenon operate in cycles of activity that, on a four billion year old planet always in flux, we couldn't even begin to understand? Perhaps we are in a natural cycle of warming at the Arctic and cooling at the Antarctic. Perhaps we are seeing solar flux from the sun that is contributing. Perhaps there are natural fluctuations in ocean salinity and temperature that play a major role. None of these suggestions are far-fetched, and you can find intelligent scientists who support and argue against the existence of such cycles.
Whether you find any of those arguments from said scientists convincing or not, though, one must acknowledge that on a four billion year old planet, our available records are a small fraction of time. It's also important to read this post in the correct context - I'm NOT making an argument that human influences are non-existent in the global warming arena, nor is that what I hope any of you, my readers, will believe. Rather, as we explore the changes and curiosities of the world around us in an ongoing search for information, I urge us all to keep in mind the state of flux our planet and all celestial bodies are in, and at least keep an open mind through it all to the possibility that some of these changes *may* be beyond our level of understanding, given our lack of insight and knowledge of what happened before recorded history.
So, the next time you hear about how the world has recorded the hottest global temperature in history, ask, "how long is that historical record and is it really representative of the age of this planet?" Then, take a step to reduce your carbon footprint, please - because, after all, this isn't a post intended to be food for skepticism on whether pollutants are harming the environment or whether humans are contributing to climate change, but rather a post to encourage thinking outside the mainstream, spoonfed information that tells us unprecedented things are taking place on our planet almost daily.
What are your thoughts on this post? Did I do an effective job of conveying what "natural cycles" are? Do you have something to add? Were you able to read the post without feeling like it was just written by another skeptic spouting off (I assure you that's not the setup here, but I'd be interested to know if anyone reacts to it as such)? I'd be interested to see your thoughts in the comments section...perhaps not necessarily on human input to global warming (we'll tackle that some other time), but moreover on the principle of natural cycles, and the idea that there may be processes occurring on greater time scales than we can recognize.
