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Tuesday, July 19. 2011

What is a global ideal temperature?

A good question, at Chaos Manor:



WHAT IS THE "CORRECT" AVERAGE TEMPERATURE? Don’t we need to know this first before we can determine what deviance is detrimental?


This is a question that used to have been answered. There is a period known as the "Climate Optimum" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum around 9,000 – 5,000 years ago. The temperature was up to 4 C warmer than now and the Sahara was fertile, supporting, if cave paintings in the central Sahara are to be believed, all sorts of animals including hippopotamus.



Holocene might be pleasant enough, but I don't even get the idea of a planetary average because, with so many climates on earth, and so many human-influenced microclimates, I would think an average would lack meaning.

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects, Our Essays at 14:15 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

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A global temperature is a easily measurable metric, uses only simple math to assemble. It is useless for making decisions.

A useful metric would be the quantity of potentially arable land, based on rainfall, growing season, high/low daily temperatures. Establish a world base flatland arable area, then add or subtract each year at the edges. Establish a relation between rain/temp and protein/acre or calories/acre, and now you're talking real information.
#1 John A. Fleming on 2011-07-19 17:15 (Reply)
Howdy John
You're quite right about the "global temperature" being easy to assemble and useless. It's also easy to manipulate, it turns out.
Your more useful metric would be very difficult indeed to put together and, more important, it probably would help to falsify the "progressive" narrative of human industry ruining the planet's weather.
#1.1 Geoff Brown on 2011-07-20 11:17 (Reply)
Well, i'm a Pleistocene man myself, but you Holocene whippersnappers do have your points about the weather --and we're all Quaternarians, in the end, i guess.
#2 buddy larsen on 2011-07-20 11:27 (Reply)
Temperature is an intensive parameter, i.e. it does not scale. Since it doesn't scale you can't average it. Average temperature is physically meaningless.
#3 Ray on 2011-07-20 12:37 (Reply)
Howdy Ray
Technically, you're correct. However, averaging temperatures does give us a way to trend them. It's just being misused horrendously.
#3.1 Geoff Brown on 2011-07-20 13:20 (Reply)

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