Is the global climate something other than the aggregate of all the regional and local climates?

Question

It's hardly just Boston that has seen cooling since mid-2007.....

Answer 1

The global climate is not possible to describe as a simple aggregate. Nor is to possible to say that it is hot or cold.

We can take some finite set of points and evaluate their CHANGE of temperature. But we will obviously omit most points on earth.

If our original set of points happens to be highly representative of large areas of earth, we may  come close to representing the globe, the way congressmen represent voters... not very well.

But climate change, rather than absolute value of climate variables is what we hope to observe trends in.

No, one would not even hope to measure global climate from Boston. Boston climate even is not measured from boston over a year or two. Variations within a decade are clearly part of the climate. But a trend in Boston that persists for several decades will become a marker in global climate if Boston happened to be one of our original measuring points.

In general. cities are not good places to measure climate trends from. An island in the ocean is a good measuring place, mostly because its air temperature is a marker for the ocean. But it does not 'represent' a continental climate.

We need marker locations in the polar regions, in the deserts, in the tropical rain forest areas, in the open prairie. But we need to avoid places that will change as a result of city micro climates.

We will most likely be refining our climate trend analysis for a century or more, not just to answer disputes, but because what we think it important to monitor will mature.  

Answer 2

Randall we are going to have to quit arguing their details and instead on fighting the inward looking theology and articles of faith that is built upon. It does no overall good to shoot at a constantly shifting target that once an argument is countered they switch to another variation of it. What all of us that see through the smoke screen of irrelevant propaganda need to do is directly countering the basic article of faith their religion is based upon.

I am going to make for all the clear point that there are organizations that have in the past and will again in the future attempt to rewrite history and the data supporting history to reach a religious or political advantage. Everything we are dealing with here is based on one religious/political doctrine and because they really believe in this doctrine they will lie, cheat and alter anything to reach the objectives of that doctrine. This is the same kind of mentality that brought us the French, Spanish and English Inquisitions. This is the same thinking that brought us Stalin, Hitler and Sadaam.

This doctrine is expressed in a book called “Limits to Growth” and promulgates the view that we know where all of the resources of the earth are located and are currently exploiting them and we will never in the future of humanity have any more than these. This is their basic problem in that they have very poor imaginations and little mental creativity. They look at the earth and so that is all they can see because they are afraid to look up and see the great unknown above because it is bigger and greater than they are.

But on the other hand skeptics are the descendents of the explorers and pioneers and are challenged to look up and dream of what they might discover out there in the universe. So look up beyond the atmosphere and realize where the writers of limits to growth looked at the ground beneath their feet and saw only limits, those like myself that have vision look up and see unlimited plenty, all we need is the courage and resolve of pioneers to go out there and get it. But instead the faithful believers in limits will quiver in cowardliness in their caves in fear of those flickering lights while those such as I are challenged to go out there and use their resources to improve the lives of all!

So we who are willing to face the future with open arms and hearts need to find a way to cure those whose vision is more limited than ours of their unrealistic fears of the new frontier.