War and Climate Change
I’ve been attempting to get this published in a journal on climate change, but they don’t seem to be interested … ?
Abstract
This research compares human power output to temperature change since 1800 to examine the effects of human activities on climate change. Temperature measurements are from Berkeley Earth and energy use statistics are from BP’s “Statistical review of energy use” and the “History Database of the Global Environment” from the Netherlands Government.
Previous researchers use 8.3°C as a baseline for temperature change. Matching human power use to pre-industrial temperatures, a baseline of 7.9°C is found. Using this, a natural signal can be seen prior to 1860 with a 29–30 year period. This signal decays during the industrial revolution of 1780–1860. The temperature and power use datasets during 1800–2016 correlate to 86.6%, at 92.6% for 1900–2016, and at 98.7% for 1965- 2016. After 1860 most power-temperature discrepancies correspond to major military conflicts. The period 1960–2016 has the fewest and smallest discrepancies and the largest continuous change in temperature.
There are two findings from this comparison:
· The trend in temperature matches the trend in human power.
· Most of the power-temperature discrepancies since 1860 correspond to periods of major human conflicts (wars).
Hence, we conclude that human activity is the primary cause of temperature change on earth since 1860. This conclusion is consistent with the bulk of scientific research on climate change and is consistent with the main theory that human-produced greenhouse gasses have resulted in an increase in temperature.
The data presented is publicly available for free. As such, it is possible for anyone to acquire and examine the data directly to come to these conclusions independently.
1. Introduction
World climate change has been a serious concern for scientists since the 1990s [1]–[6]. Despite the consensus of scientists that human activity has caused climate change, many skeptics in the general public still do not believe that humans are the cause of any temperature changes [7]–[10].
Recently the US Government produced a report on Climate change [11]. This report concluded that “it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.” The report examined four components of changes to the global surface temperature. These were Solar, Volcanic, Natural Variability, and Human (Anthropogenic). The human-related temperature was significantly larger than the solar contribution and volcanic activity actually caused cooling.
Despite this, there is still some opinion in the general public that humans are not responsible for climate change. One reason for this is that Climate scientists examine the climate, they do not typically look at industry records for energy production. As such, human power usage has not been directly compared to temperature. The energy company BP has produced detailed records of energy production since 1960 [12] and further records collated by the Netherlands Government estimate power usage from 1800 to 1960 [13].
2. Data
The data presented in this section was collected data from several sources. The data presented in this research dates back to 1965, but the complete data covers as far back as 1800. This data is compared directly to determine the correlation between temperature and human energy use. Raw data for the annual anomaly (°C) and total world power consumption (MTOE) from the sources have been used. No adjustments have been made to their original values. Five-year average temperature change (°C) is calculated from the average of the previous five years. The values for 1965–2015 are shown in Table 1.
The temperature data was taken from Berkeley Earth Org [14]. Energy use statistics are from BP’s statistical review of energy use [12] and the History Database of the Global Environment from the Netherlands Government [13].
This data is shown in graphical form with axes manually aligned in Figure 1. There is a notable variation in temperature between 1920 and 1965 that corresponds to World War II and other conflicts and has been noted by other researchers [15]. War is a distinctly human activity, and this discrepancy should be convincing enough that human activity is a cause of climate change.
The anomalies measured in the Berkeley Earth data are compared to a reference baseline of 8.3°C. This is an arbitrary level and is based on the average temperatures between January 1951 and Dec 1980. As such, this is not expected to be the real baseline for power output. Several tests were made to estimate an appropriate baseline. Using the temperature data and converting the human power output to temperature a scale and offset were estimated to determine appropriate baselines. The baseline was tested at 0.05 °C increments from 8.3°C down to 7.5°C.
At 7.9°C baseline, it was found that the data sets matched in several areas where there were no known large scale human conflicts (1971–1980 and 1983–1990). At this baseline, the human power use matches to the average of a signal from 1790 and 1860 as shown in Figure 1. Taking this data the dates for major military conflicts and historical are overlayed with the temperature data in Figure 3.
Figure 2 shows a detailed view of the temperature and energy use between 1965 and 2015. This shows several major discrepancies that correspond to conflicts in the world. The Vietnam War occurred from 1965 to 1973. The Falklands war 1981–1982 the Yugoslavia 1991–2001 and finally the more recent conflicts in the Middle East began in 2001. The largest discrepancy is the most recent middle-east conflicts. These discrepancies show that a temperate change occurs, but the energy use does not show a significant change. This means that the world is showing an effect that correlates with the timing of the conflict, but the energy use is not showing an increase. This may be that the world militaries do not have to register any energy use with the organizations that track energy use. Many military aircraft also use hydrazine as fuel which produces nitrous oxide (NO2) instead of CO2, but may not be included in the world energy use statistics, which are based around oil products.
If we take the difference between these two signals by estimating how Power consumption translates to temperature and subtracted shown in Figure 4. From approximately 1850 onwards this represents the remainder of temperature that has “industrial” power usage removed. When we consider the “human activities” that occurred during this period the peaks seem to correlate with wars.
While this is a preliminary estimate it seems to correlate with both timing and intensity of the military conflicts that have occurred. It is unclear whether the effect is directly from the conflict itself, via the usage of explosives to disperse particulates into the atmosphere or simply related to industry at the time. It is also possible that supporting industrial activities contribute to temperature change. Either way, the remaining signal appears to represent the timing and intensity of military conflicts since approximately 1850.
What is clear is that the human activities including both industrial, represented by the world energy use from BP [12] and the History Database [13], and military, from the temperature difference, appear to correspond to the vast majority of the signal above approximately 7.9°C from 1850 onwards. Both of these components represent human activities. So if this interpretation is correct it means that human activities currently contribute 1.8C above the 7.9°C baseline.
The typical explanation for the temperature increase is that of greenhouse gasses including Carbon dioxide (CO2), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and Methane (CH4). While individually CO2, NO2, and CH4 do not correspond well over the entire period 1800–2004. However, most likely there is a cumulative effect between the contaminants, as they are all considered greenhouse gasses. It is difficult to guess how much they would each contribute as they have different sensitivities to absorbing radiation.
Other minor anomalies from 1960 to 2015 can be accounted for by variation in solar activity as shown in Figure 3, reproduced with permission [16]. This data was collated from Coddington et al. [17] and Kopp et al. [18] reconstructed solar power variation from 1610 to 2016 using data compiled by the University of Colorado [19]. This data shows a flattening of the temperature anomalies from 2008 to 2014.
Similar flattening can be seen from 1991 to 1995 and from 1983 to 1987. These flattening periods coincide with decreases in solar activity in the same period. All of these periods are followed by significant increases in temperature anomalies. This indicates that the current flattening is temporary and caused by destructive interference between the gradual increase in human activity-based power output and solar activity. The significant increases in temperature correspond with constructive interference between the gradual increase in human activity-based power output and solar activity. The most recent observations of temperature anomaly jump from 1.16°C to 1.37°C, the largest increase yet, and also consistent with constructive interference with solar radiation. However, the amount of variation during these periods is typically less than 0.02°C
3. Analysis
The primary analysis of this research compares the temperature anomaly since the year 1800 to the reconstruction of human energy usage over the same period. The main difficulty in making a comparison with the two different datasets is that they use different units. As such, a baseline temperature needs to be established. The temperature anomaly uses a baseline of 8.3°C. However, when using this the human energy use does not correspond to any particular features in the temperature data.
Figure 3 and Figure 2 show the temperature anomaly versus the world energy use, using a baseline temperature of 7.9°C. At 7.9°C, the world energy use is within 0.1°C between 1974 and 1994, also shown in Figure 2. The baseline temperature of 7.9°C matches the pre-1850 average, and as such, is considered the most likely baseline.
This gives a total change between baseline (7.9 °C) and the current temperature (9.7 °C) of 1.8 °C. If we calculate the change in input energy from black body radiation that corresponds to a change in the earth’s silhouette area of 88.92 km. This is less than the average thickness of the atmosphere estimated at 100km. This suggests that without human activity the atmosphere itself would be transparent to most of the incoming solar energy. With the addition of greenhouse gasses, the atmosphere absorbs solar radiation and increases the effective radius of the earth from 6380km to 6468.92 km giving an increase in silhouette area from 1.27877 × 1014 to 1.31466 × 1014, an increase of 2.68%. Using solar radiation at 1360 W/m2 increases the power input from 1.73926 × 1017W to 1.74127 × 1017W a change of 4.6807 × 1015W. Using the baseline temperature (7.9 °C), the surface area of the earth 5.1151 × 1014 m2, (at 6380 km) and the equation for black body radiation (shown at Equation 1) the change in temperature can be calculated from the change in power.
Equation 1 Black body radiation: q = σ T⁴ A
where:
q = heat transfer per unit time (W)
σ = 5.6703 10–8 (W/m2K4), The Stefan-Boltzmann Constant
T = absolute temperature in Kelvin (K)
A = area of the emitting body (m2)
At 7.9 °C, we have a power of 1.80964 × 1017 W. This increases by 4.6807 × 1015 W to 1.85644 × 1017 W. Reversing the calculation we get the upper value for the current temperature of 9.7 °C. This calculation also validates the baseline estimate of 7.9 °C. The earth’s radius of 6380km is still used as we are attempting to determine the final temperature at the earth’s surface. This assumes that the extra energy from the atmosphere is projected down and absorbed at the surface level.
The temperature and power use datasets during 1800–2016 correlate to 86.6%, at 92.6% for 1900–2016, and at 98.7% for 1965- 2016. In the pre-1850 temperatures, there is a variation of as much as 1.5 °C with a 20 to 30-year cycle. This cycle appears to decay as human activity increases during the industrial revolution, and almost completely disappears before 1900. Once the estimated temperature was calculated the discrepancies in temperature from 1880 onwards could be attributed to military activity and the supporting industrial activity during this period. World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam War conflicts involved many countries and extensive use of high-energy weapons and explosives. In Figure 2, the major discrepancy from 1995 to 2011 could also be attributed to military operations in the Middle East. Many explosives and military fuels are based on nitrogen rather than carbon-based fuels. As such, nitrogen-based fuels would not show up in carbon dioxide measurements and may not be included in world energy measurements. Further investigation would be required to establish if there is a relationship between military activity and Earth's resulting temperature. This has also been noted by Gerhard [15] who stated “The discrepancy in the 1940s may be caused by the effects of dust and smoke added to the atmosphere by World War II”.
Explosives and gunpowder used in early conflicts such as the Ottoman and Boer wars (1860–1900) produced significantly higher particulates (smoke) than their modern counterparts (often called cordite or smokeless gun powders). As such, it is possible that these earlier conflicts caused more temperature change as they produced higher amounts of particulates despite the conflicts being significantly smaller than the more modern conflicts (1920 — Modern). The military conflicts that correspond to periods of increased temperature include the First and Second Boer Wars, the First World War, the Spanish Civil war, Second World War, Korean War, Vietnam War, Falklands War, and The Modern Middle Eastern conflicts.
Military conflicts were almost constant before 1900 occurring almost annually in various places around the world. Despite this, there is very little correlation to the conflicts that occurred before 1900. However, the larger conflicts from the Second Boer war may be more relevant due to higher levels of mechanization, the use of explosives, and the use of large coal or steam-powered Navies. There may also be some constructive interference with the Industrial revolution 30 year period signal.
After 1900 the wars became significantly more mechanized and hence higher energy. These periods show a significantly larger variation between the estimated human power usage and global temperature. The conflicts themselves may not be the only contributor to temperature change as each of these conflicts required increases in industrial output to create the weapons used and deploy them at the conflict sites around the world.
There were several periods of peace between the First and Second Boer War, the First and second world wars and after Vietnam that correspond to periods where the temperature is closer to the human power data set. The periods between Vietnam and Falkland’s War (1971–1981) and the Falkland’s and Middle East Conflicts (1983–1991) are almost identical to the human power estimation data set. This suggests that during these times the human activity was the primary cause of any temperature change.
This research by itself may not be considered completely compelling by itself, but taken with the other research produced around the world by climate scientists I believe it adds to the mounting evidence of human-caused climate change. This research considers a very simple data relationship with historical records. Given the complexity of measuring climate change in the modern world, I would recommend much further investigation into the observations presented here from both a climate change and a historical perspective. Both the events as described in historical documents and the technologies used in history may be able to provide insights into the effects of human activities on the world’s climate.
4. Conclusions
Previous researchers have used 8.3°C as a baseline for temperature change. By matching the human output to pre-industrial (1860) temperature a baseline of 7.9°C can be found. Once the baseline is established the human power usage in MTOE can be compared to the world average temperature. Human power use, between 1960 and 2015, correlates with the temperature with a factor of 0.988.
The discrepancies between temperature and world energy use correspond to major military conflicts since around 1860. The military conflicts that correspond to periods of increased temperature include the First and Second Boer Wars, the First World War, the Spanish civil war, Second World War, Korean War, Vietnam War, Falklands War, and modern conflicts in the Middle East. As the militaries of the world do not report their energy use directly it is expected that human power use is higher than reported in the BP data. Secondly, there may effect from distributing particles from the use of high explosives or other military fuels that directly cause increases in temperature.
The majority of the change in temperature since 1860 can be explained directly by human power use. Many of the remaining discrepancies between temperature and human power use occur during military conflicts in the world. War is a distinctly human activity that uses a significant amount of power and causes both greenhouse gasses, from industry and direct military use, as well as dispersing other particulates from the use of explosives. With both of these points, we can conclude that it is very likely that human activity has been the primary cause of temperature change in the world since the end of the industrial revolution (approximately 1860).
A mechanism identified in this research is that the sensitivity of the atmosphere is absorbing radiation from the sun increases the effective silhouette are of the earth thus increasing the amount of energy absorbed by planet earth. The amount of energy captured to increase earth temperature by 1.8 °C requires that the Earth's radius increase by 88.92 km, which is within the expected size of the Earth’s atmosphere.
These conclusions are also consistent with the bulk of scientific research on climate change and are consistent with the main theory that human-produced greenhouse gasses have resulted in an increase in temperature in the last two centuries.
It is worth noting that the main conclusions of this article are drawn from data sources that are publicly available. As such, it is possible for laymen to both acquire and examine the data directly to come to these conclusions independently.
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