Chapters 1-3
This page will contain most of the illustrations in the book in Chapters 1-3.
Chapter 2:
Illustration 1: Annual Temperature of the Earth and the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The average temperature of the Earth is different for each month of the year.
Illustration 2: (Green) Average Monthly Temperature (Brown) Actual Monthly Temperature (Purple) The monthly anomaly.
This was made by taking the blended temperature anomaly data and applying it to the monthly average from Illustration 1. This is not a single source of data. Blended temperature is covered later.
Illustration 3: The Earth's tilt causes the seasons. Picture from NOAA Online School.
Illustration 4: Winter Solstice. Notice that the Arctic gets almost no sunlight while the Antarctic is in sun 24 hours a day.
Illustration 5: Summer Solstice. Now the Arctic is in sunlight 24 hours a day while the Antarctic gets none.
Illustration 6: Much of the Northern Hemisphere is covered by land.
Illustration 7: Southern Hemisphere is mostly open ocean.
Illustration 11: The station methods are generally warmer than the satellite methods.
Illustration 12: Using a single set for most usages is useful and incorporates more information than any single set.
Chapter 3:
Illustration 13: The Earth 50 Million Years Ago. This is the period known as the early Eocene. Sea levels were more than 150m(500ft) higher than they are today as there were no permanent ice sheets anywhere on the Earth.
Illustration 15: Temperature was determined by calibrating stable isotope to temperatures of the recent glacials. Epochs of the Cenozoic are also shown. (Zachos, 2008)
Zachos, J., et al. 2008.
Cenozoic Global Deep-Sea Stable Isotope Data.
IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology
Data Contribution Series # 2008-098.
NOAA/NCDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.
Illustration 16: Drake Passage was closed in the early Cenozoic. The opening of the passage altered the Earth's climate.
Illustration 17: Changing geography plays a major role in changes to the Earth's climate. (Zachos, 2008)
Illustration 18: Antarctica has experienced wildly variable climate in the past. This included periods of rapidly advancing glaciers and also rapidly retreating glaciers. (Zachos, 2008)
Illustration 19: The last 1 million years has been the coldest period of the past 65 million years. Same temperature calibration to benthic stable isotope. See science content for details. (Zachos, 2008)
Illustration 20: Temperature history of the last 3 million years. Different source and slightly different calibration. Each time the temperature goes up on this chart is the start of an interglacial. Each time the temperature drops that is the start of a glacial. (Raymo, 2005)
L. E., and M. E. Raymo (2005), A Pliocene-
Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic d18O records,
Paleoceanography,20, PA1003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001071.
Illustration 21: Eemian temperature reconstruction from the EPICA ice core. This is the temperature reconstruction of the last interglacial the Earth experienced. This is the last summer that the current interglacial should be compared to.
EPICA Dome C Ice Cores Deuterium Data.
IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology
Data Contribution Series # 2004-038.
NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.
Illustration 22: Two different sources of the benthic stable oxygen isotope data that is used to reconstruct the Earth's temperature for the past 1,000,000 years.
Excellent work! This is just the extended context I’ve been seeking. The current debate centers too much on the last 100 years or less with no benchmark comparison. Hopefully, you will post on the topic of CO2 and temperature correlation and address the issue of causality. Keep up the work.
The end of the Little Ice Age was about 1850 according to most srceuos I read. This temperature source is from direct temperature measurements around the world at the same stations over time. 1880 is the starting date because it is the date from which enough temperature stations were collecting data to be able to generate reliable temperature anomaly data. It’s a statistical reason.If you a different method the warming since 1880 is clearly above that 1000 year average.
This is more of a question than a comment. I have seen various graphs of CO2 levels and temperature charts and the general consensus, at least appears to be, increasing CO2 means increasing temperature: cause and effect, but to my mind it can be the other way around increasing temperature causes increasing CO2 because the oceans will more readily give off CO2. The other thing that comes to mind is that in many northern hemisphere countries tend to put vast quantities of salt and other things on the roads to reduce ice forming. This salt is generally mined and eventually ends up in the sea, increasing salinity will also cause the oceans to give off more CO2, but I have seen no data on changing salinity of the oceans – perhaps I have not looked hard enough.
Most scientists will admit that warming oceans release more CO2 into the atmosphere, but then many of them will say that a feedback mechanism kicks in that provides the additional warming. I disagree that the feedback is significant in any way.
The amount of salt that is used by mankind is ~0 since most of it comes from the oceans directly or indirectly. We will not alter the salinity of the oceans through the use of salting roads.