1850 Why is this the start of temperature measurements regarding Global Warming?

Question

1850 Why is this the start of temperature measurements regarding "global Warming"?
Can anyone yell me why this date is the start year of temperature graphs etc "proving" Global Warming? Was there an international body set up in this year to monitor and collate worldwide temperatures?
Thank you.

Answer 1

1. Read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

FIRST item thereunder: "Observed temperature changes"



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record

"The period for which reasonably reliable instrumental records of near-surface temperature exist with quasi-global coverage is generally considered to begin around 1850."



2. Post questions for additional information

(if you in fact have any interest whatever in learning anything).



Edit: I see from your remark, that I left out an even earlier step:

0. Learn how to read (e.g. how to read my point 1 above which answers your question -the one you ACTUALLY ASKED here). If you want to know why temperature measurements before 1850 are insufficient or unreliable or both, then ask THAT question. By the way, you can dismiss any laughable crap conspiracy theories about how 160 years of scientific research is some massive everlasting world communist plot. You can also use that new exotic tool called google.



Edit2: I DID answer your question, Floss. If you can stop being a juvenile, hypocrite and liar for long enough to read what I wrote, you can find my answer above. If you are too ignorant to know how to ask the question you want to ask, that is not our problem. I answered the question you actually asked. The global average temperature measurements that are generally used typically start around 1850 because there were very few reliable measurements before that year. Sorry, but this is the global warming section, not nursery school. For those who are past grade school, Wikipedia and every major science academy in the world being all in agreement does not mean that they are all wrong together (Mr. Cole) just because one non-scientist contradicts them. See http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/beck-to-the-future/

Answer 2

I 'm pretty sure that it's because there were not enough recording stations before this time to give adequate global coverage. It's a shame really; though there are longer records, there aren't enough of them.



I believe the longest is the Central England Temperature Record:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_England_temperature



This record probably isn't too good as an indication of global temperatures since our island climate is dominated by the north atlantic. Whilst I think the global sets are sufficient to show the current warming trend, longer sets would certainly be interesting.



As for an international body, I would have thought highly unlikely back then. Probably not until post ww2, if at all. However, the Royal Navy (and those of other maritime powers) would have an interest in maintaining global records.

Answer 3

A good question having no clear answer. Dook and his source suggest more reliable/standardized measuring devices which could be the reason.



Be that as it may, even the 'modern-era' measuring devices have their pitfalls.... in particularly land-use changes around measuring stations (Urban Heat Island Effect), lack of maintenance of equipment... etc.... (noted in Dook's source) which have cast serious doubts on the reliability of such equipment and their resulting measurements..... despite attempts to "adjust" measurements to account for such shortfalls.



My guess is that 1850 was simply an arbitrary date selected as a 'starting point' for climate study.



1850 also coincides with what is generally accepted as the end of the 'Little Ice Age'. Maybe that had some bearing on the selection of the start-up date???

Answer 4

1850 is generally considered the start of the Second Industrial Revolution. This means that the use of oil and coal began accelerating and thus the beginning of when man really started putting CO2 into the atmosphere from the burning of these fossil fuels.



It also meant the real increase in a number of other factors as well. Farming really began to take off as farming machinery improved and land began being cleared more and more. Urbanization also took off as the population grew and cities expanded as cheap energy (from fossil fuels) became more abundant.



I guess it seemed pretty convenient to start comparing CO2 and temperature to each other starting in 1850 since they both were going up from that time to now. Of course, as I stated, a lot of other factors were following this pattern as far as human activity and on top of that solar activity was on the increase as well since then.



But as we know, CO2 emissions have been the focus and the other factors have be summarily dismissed (well acknowledged as least but dismissed as insignificant nonetheless).

Answer 5

I believe that was the year accurate and adequate global temperature measurements began being kept.



Flossie: I'm not sure as I have not looked into it myself. You'll probably have to get this information, regarding who they were taken by, from someone other than me.



Ian: Are you mentally incompetent? Have you not been told, time and time again, that the warming of 1998 was due to what is known as an extreme El Nino? Have you not been shown the El Nino Index? Why do you persist on stating things dealing with 1 year when we are dealing with trends? Are you not aware, even though you have been told this many times before, that 9 of the ten warmest years in al data sets have occurred in the last decade, the outlier being 1998? If you think the trend is not increasing due to that information perhaps you need to take more elementary school courses.



El Nino Index: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/

Temperature Reconstructions:



HadCRUT3 - http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif

GISS - http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.gif

RSS - http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html

Answer 6

Jeff M



Accurate and adequate? In the 1850's. They're not even accurate now. The most accurate ones are satellite measurements (which show no warming since 1998 btw)

Answer 7

You might consider, when did the Industrial Revolution become seriously established ?



In advocating a human cause for Global Warming, associating it with Industrialisation is a key argument.

Answer 8

It wasn't 1850, it was 1750's. Joseph Black had studied the properties of CO2 in the 1750’s and Joseph Priestly studied and published studies of oxygen in 1775



Global measurements of CO2 were then done beginning in 1812. Precise measurements were taken and documented in a publication by Ernst Beck “180 Years Of Atmospheric CO2 Gas analysis By Chemical Method”. The assumption by the IPCC that CO2 levels were low postindustrial revolution, is false. T.R. Wigley published in 1983 “The Pre-Industrial Carbon Dioxide Level” and eliminated the higher level measurements, and used only the lower level measurements to say the levels were only 270 ppma. The average level till the late 1880’s was about 400 ppma, far above the claimed 270 ppma.



The reason some years are picked, is to deliberatly show that human activity has been causing atmospheric levels to rise when in fact it is not true. The real problem with that is that tectonic activity began to rise about 950 AD, and accelerated in 1865, which has been causing atmospheric levels to rise, not human activity (burning of carbon fuels). It is an illusion to present CO2 level rose with the industrial revolution - the reason that 1850ish is picked. http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9105-climate-change-paradox-current-co2-levels-are-not-of-anthropogenic-origins Some dictionaries on line have the same data, but in different order than this publication.



Mr Gore chose 1960 in his infomercial (he owns Generation Investment Management that buys and sells carbon credits, which he has been promoting to do for decades) because 1960 is when Infared measurements from satellites began. There are a few anomolies with chemical measurements of atmospheric CO2 levels, but IR measurements do not take into consideration any variabilities and assumes smooth blending.



If you do not read the articles completely, at least look at the charts. They are widely accepted in the science communities world wide, with more than 31,478 in the states alone. Read this publication to know more. It gives references for additional information and verification.

http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9195-co2-levels-pre-industrial-revolution

Additional information is in these publications

http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9130-global-warmingclimate-change-paradox-closing-the-book-on-an-illusion



http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9016-the-global-warmingclimate-change-paradox-why-co2-has-not-is-not-nor-will-not-be-an-issue.



http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9044-climate-change-paradox-creating-a-nonevent-crisis



http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9074-climate-change-paradox-creating-an-energy-crisis