OPINION:
There is some hysteria over recent declarations of worldwide, record-breaking heat based on woefully limited climate data. Perspective is badly needed to calm the air. Official proclamations cannot change the climate or alter the state of the atmosphere, but they can lead to undue panic.
The assertion that the exceptionally voluminous quantity of air that surrounds the planet is undergoing disastrous disruption by anthropogenic actions is a hypothesis, not an established fact.
The lowest layer of the atmosphere, where we experience everyday weather, is called the troposphere. The average height of the troposphere is about 7 miles, and contains a volume of about 1½ billion cubic miles of air. Within this vast, airy sphere are mixed permanent and variable gases.
The permanent gases, mainly nitrogen and oxygen, make up 99% of the air. But it’s the increases in trace amounts of certain variable gases that are of most concern.
Of course, everyone’s been warned about the dangers of increasing carbon dioxide, which is at 0.04% of the air. Since carbon dioxide is a “greenhouse gas” that contributes to global warming, people (especially children, sadly) are scared into believing that a disastrous runaway climate catastrophe is imminent from the continued use of fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide.
However, water in all its forms is the biggest climate regulator, and nobody is afraid of water.
Water vapor in the air ranges from zero to 4%, depending on location and weather conditions. Combine vaporous water with the phase changes of vapor, to liquid, to solid forms and liquid water covering more than 70% of the Earth’s surface and veiling the sky with numerous clouds and ice and snow blanketing large areas, and you get an overwhelming climate controller: water.
The mitigating effects of water are undeniable. Yet this essential fact is largely ignored in popular discussions about climate change.
Can humans substantially alter climate conditions? Yes, without a doubt.
For instance, the “urban heat island” has been documented for decades. This is the condition where large cities may experience average annual temperatures of 3 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than before the city was developed and much higher temperature differences on individual days.
This warmth can extend above the city for thousands of feet. Regardless of such measurable increase in temperature, most people choose to live in city environs.
Outside city centers, peer-reviewed scientific research by myself and others on the lowest layer of the atmosphere — air from the ground up to about a mile overhead — has shown mixed changes in the atmospheric temperature structure in the past few decades.
The studies show that the small increase in global average temperature has some apparently noticeable and somewhat understandable effects but not a cataclysmic alteration of the atmosphere. Rather, modest positive and negative effects have been observed on the stability of surface-level air.
There are less than about 1,000 sites across the planet that launch twice-daily weather balloons into the upper atmosphere to sense changing conditions and to assist with forecasting. Data from the balloon flights is coupled with thousands of surface-based weather stations that produce continuous ground-level measurements.
Both upper-air and surface stations are largely placed over land, with a widespread set of sites over the vast oceans. Satellite surveillance of the atmosphere fills in the gaps.
But even this rather limited coverage of the globe is quite recent. The U.S. and European weather bureaus originated in the mid-1800s with sparsely spaced stations employing weather observers recording data from relatively primitive (by today’s techniques) equipment, while satellite coverage began only in the late 1970s.
Nonetheless, wild claims are made based on this limited meteorological information by politicians and agenda-driven activists. Cherry-picking data, truncating timelines for temperature trends, citing opinions of “experts” as facts, and relying on anecdotal evidence have been used to incite dramatic dubious actions — actions that oftentimes ignore much more urgent human conditions such as lack of reliable, affordable electricity for millions of Earth’s inhabitants.
Claims of record-breaking heat notwithstanding, scientists have a long way to go to sufficiently comprehend the envelope of air surrounding the globe and the effect on it by variable atmospheric gases. Only humility will guide an objective look at the design and operation of the complex atmosphere and what it means for Earth’s future climate.
• Anthony J. Sadar, a certified consulting meteorologist, is an adjunct associate professor at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and the author of “In Global Warming We Trust: Too Big to Fail” (Stairway Press).
Please read our comment policy before commenting.