The Globe and Mail's Report on Business 25th anniversary issue this past Saturday contained a two page spread by John Daly comparing photos by photographer Elizabeth Jones of downtown Toronto on May 21, 2009 and May 21, 1984.
Here are the photos:
2009 on top, 1984 below. The article pointed out all the new buildings that have gone up. Toronto sure has changed. But look at Toronto Island. Notice how much greener the trees are compared to the grass in 2009 vs. 1984. Nature has changed too.
These pictures don't prove anything about global warming, but it is interesting to note that the foliage is quite a bit more advanced in 2009 compared to 1984. This colour change is amplified by the fact that it's spring and the colour of trees changes rapidly during May. If it's a couple of degrees warmer, on average, then everything grows something like ten days earlier. Look carefully at nature and you'll be able to pick out the signs of global warming.
And yes, in case you were wondering, according to the National Climate Data and Information Archive, in Toronto, March, April and May 2009 were on average about 3 degrees warmer than those respective months in 1984.
17 comments:
It's called the urban effect.
Global temperatures are down.
Stupid comparison. Pictures were taken at different times of the day (look at the shadow on the building at the bottom left) and there is no way to compare the exposures (saturation & contrast) or current weather conditions.
As pointed out elsewhere, look, the water is bluer too!
EarlW's "Stupid comparison" comment would seem to be premature. I did see that the tints on the two pictures were different. That is why I suggested comparing the trees to the grass and not comparing the trees in 1984 to the trees in 2009.
Mr. or Ms. Dante's comment about Global temperatures is, of course, false.
From 1984 to the present, global land and ocean surface temperature has increased by about 0.4 degrees (Goddard Institute for Space Studies)
Of course, it's okay to be wrong. What's bad about the global warming deniers is that they make statements they know are wrong in order to mislead and deceive us.
As for the urban heat island effect, it's unclear what the change in the urban heat island effect from 1984 to 2009 would be. First of all we are talking about a wooded island, which has remained about the same over 25 years. The urban heat island effect changes a lot depending on terrain, and certainly decreases a lot when you have so much water around. Now, as you cross the water, skyscrapers have replaced industrial buildings. Which gives a bigger heat island effect and whether that affects Toronto Island isn't so clear.
In any case, my point was that these pictures were not a smoking gun proof, but just an indication of what you can see if you look closely at nature.
The vegetation is more thoroughly grown in in the more recent picture. Esp. visible on the Northern island.
"EarlW's "Stupid comparison" comment would seem to be premature."
I think not. There is so much variability from year to year and picture to picture, that even to suggest that "Look carefully at nature and you'll be able to pick out the signs of global warming." is ludicrous.
You mention a scientific background. Let's be honest here... Could you _really_ compare these 2 pictures and come up with anything related to global warming?
A comparison of winter pictures of Montreal 2 years ago and 27 years ago would show what? Global cooling? (In case you were not around, we had a record amount of snow).
It just goes to show a PhD doesn't mean much these days. To attribute this seasonal variation to global warming is ridiculous, and to attribute any visible change to a difference in temperature that is a mere 0.3 degrees on average is nonsense. A couple of rainfalls could account for any difference in foliage.
White balance, film vs digital, old negative...rainfall and even extra CO2 which makes plants grow.
This is the sort of shoddy alarmist which is reducing the warmists to laughingstocks.
Maybe you should go and do a body count of the drowning polar bears which were all the rage last year.
I think it looks like she used a polarizing filter for the 2009 shot.
Sean has misplaced a decimal point. If he reads the original post he will see that I stated that the average temperature over March, April and May (three whole months) happened to be 3 degrees, not 0.3 degrees higher in 2009 compared to 1984.
"And yes, in case you were wondering, according to the National Climate Data and Information Archive, in Toronto, March, April and May 2009 were on average about 3 degrees warmer than those respective months in 1984."
OK, very slowly. Three months worth of average temperatures twenty five years ago is "weather" not "climate".
You really need to get with that program because it is pretty much the only way the warmists are able to explain the last decade's cooling trend.
A number of commentators have said that these two pictures don't say anything about global warming. By the way, thank you for paying so much attention to comments of an obscure blog! Allow me to respond to that.
I did write, in my original post, that these pictures do not prove anything about global warming.
What I do claim is that the pictures are consistent with the fact that Toronto was about 270 degree-days warmer over March-May in 2009 as compared with March-May 1984. Forget the pictures if you wish and think about that.
What I would claim further is that you shouldn't be surprised that happened, given that mean global temperatures in the northern latitudes haven risen about 1 degree over the last 25 years.
The pictures of trees in the spring, how green the trees are relative to the grass, and the fact that the colour of trees is changing quickly during that season (which amplifies the effect of a temperature difference) is a nice illustration of warming.
Thank you for reading my blog, whoever you are, except for bigcitylib whose identity is not concealed.
Thank you for reading my blog, whoever you are, except for bigcitylib whose identity is not concealed.
EarlW is actually a person named Earl. Kyla is actually a person named Kyla. Sean's real name is... you guessed it!: Sean! jaycurrie? I know that punk! His real name is Jay Currie! That Michael Ryan fella? Yeah, he's lying. His real name is Michael P.J.Z. Ryan.
Ted, a word of advice: If your powers of "climate change" recognition are as awesome as your powers of name recognition, I strongly suggest that find a new line of work. Either that or quit blogging. One or the other.
Oh yeah, grade 6 called... They want their diploma back...
"given that mean global temperatures in the northern latitudes haven risen about 1 degree over the last 25 years."
Hi Ted, is that raw data or adjusted data? Is it satellite temps or ground-based?
I ask because there does seem to be some dispute about the accuracy or adjusted temps, while about 80% of the ground stations in the US have been shown to break their own regulations in terms of distance from localized heat sources.
www.wattsupwiththat.com and climateaudit.com are good resources for this.
Ted:
I have not missed a decimal point.
Global temperatures have risen 0.3 degrees in that period of time, so you can only reasonably attribute 0.3 degrees to anthropomorphic global warming (although I don't believe AGW theory because the evidence is flimsy).
If temperatures in Toronto have risen 3 degrees, that is attributable primarily to the urban heat island effect - Toronto is a lot bigger than it used to be.
Over the same period, northernmost Ontario has cooled more than 4 degrees on average.
I also stand by my comment that any difference in foliage is more likely to be attributed to seasonal changes in rainfall and other weather patterns, not climate change.
It's disappointing to see someone supposedly trained in science to be making such outlandish claims.
Ted, you are the victim of the Global Warming/Climate Change trolls - mutant creatures who scan the net for tags and labels to debunk. It's a lot of bother to debunk the debunkers.
As I say, if people aren't interested in tackling climate change, perhaps they'd be interested in stopping resource wars and bringing their troops home to do flood management.
The colour difference in these two photos could be due to Kodak film red tones versus Fuji blue/green (or digital).
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