Calculating The Earth’s Temperature

To calculate the earth’s temperature at any given moment in time is virtually impossible. Just consider the challenge. The earth’s temperature is constantly changing, it is never static; half the earth is in the sun, half in the dark, and the rotation of the earth causes that split to be forever moving.

Then there is the atmosphere itself. The atmosphere is the most fluid part of the planet, by far. The air is always moving, the jet stream is moving north and south while blowing west to east, constantly changing, from hour to hour. Clouds form and disappear, humidity rises and falls, winds pick up or go calm, hurricanes form, cold fronts move, warm fronts move, and barometric pressure also changes from moment to moment.

And then there are elements like volcanoes which spew millions of tons of dirt and ash into the atmosphere, almost overnight. This infusion of material into the atmosphere causes global temperatures to drop, almost immediately, for summers to disappear, crops to fail, and other consequences. Plus the influence of known temperature influences factors like the sun, and sunspots, and the ever changing closeness of the earth to the sun.

All of these factors, and more, affect the global temperature, and all of them are in constant flux. Then we consider the problem of measuring the temperature of the surface of the earth’s oceans. There are no permanent monitoring stations on the surface of the oceans; most oceanic weather and temperature reports come from ships, which are not stationary. Satellites are able to provide accurate, though some dispute this, temperature readings, but not over the entire globe at every given moment.

So what is the real temperature? For environmentalists to claim global temperatures are rising is more than a stretch. They are making this claim based, not on real, recorded temperatures, but on computer models, all of which have been shown to be entirely faulty and without merit. And if real data does show a temperature rise, so what? We know temperatures rise and fall, weather cycles, it is ever changing, so how can anyone possibly claim to know the global temperature?

And, of course, the presumption is that rising global temperatures are bad, which is also highly debatable. Rising temperatures mean more food production, more forest production, less starvation, more rain; and less severe, cold weather.

NASA’s website reports: “For the global mean, the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 14 Celsius, i.e. 57.2 F, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58 F and regionally, let alone locally, the situation is even worse.” Interpretation? We really have no idea what the global mean is–but we will continue to pretend that we do. NASA goes on, “Don't get too excited about calculating Earth's precise mean temperature since radiative balance has yet to measured .” Interpretation? There are parts of the earth’s temperature variants that we haven’t begun to understand, let a lone calculate.

NASA continues, “The bottom line is that we do not know what the planet's current temperature is, although satellite-mounted instruments and Argo autonomous floats are giving us a better picture than we had before. We do not know what the planet's temperature was 100 years ago with any meaningful precision. We have no way of telling whether Earth will be warmer or cooler at the beginning of Solar Cycle 25 (SC24 is just sputtering to a start now and it is reasonable to guess Earth will be slightly warmer in the midst of the roughly 11 year cycle, although there is no guarantee).”

Pretending to know the earth’s temperature does not change the fact it is unknowable. But so-called scientists cannot be deterred by this embarrassment; they will still claim to know the temperature of the earth, even if they have to make it up–which is what they do. Computer models to the rescue...and continue to claim to know the earth’s temperature; and it will be what they say it is because they are the experts, and they know. We mere mortals are just expected to follow along, stay in line, and believe the all-knowing environmentalists who put forth this tripe..