Posted on 06/10/2002 9:06:51 PM PDT by ancient_geezer
Despite continuing efforts by greenhouse “sceptics”, the conventional wisdom remains that rising levels of carbon dioxide are changing the climate. Numerous model simulations predict that continuing increases in CO2 and other greenhouse gases will result in hotter weather, worse storms, rising sea levels, and spreading tropical diseases.
Scientifically, however, the global warming theory has had a torrid year. Meetings in Lyons from 11 to 15 September 2000 were to have hammered out the final details for cutting emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, for approval at the Sixth Conference of Parties to the UN Climate Convention at The Hague in November. http://www.unfccc.de/resource/docs/whatnew/notification.pdf
Instead delegates have been confronting the looming collapse of the Protocol and a growing crisis of confidence in the underlying greenhouse theory.
Three key aspects of the greenhouse scenario have recently come unstuck. First, warming to date in the free atmosphere appears to be negligible. Second, it seems the warming effect of extra CO2 may have been overestimated. And third, greenhouse gas concentrations are rising at less than half the rate assumed in most climate models.
The mounting evidence that the greenhouse threat has been overblown has left many of its scientific proponents searching for explanations. Meanwhile, Finance Ministries in Europe and North America have been stunned by the estimated price tag for meeting Kyoto targets, and one government has already fallen over the issue.
Contamination of the surface record by local heating effects
The initial evidence that greenhouse warming was happening came from compilations of global surface temperature records from around the world, which appeared to show a warming of about 0.6 degrees through the 20th century, 0.4 of it since the mid-1970s. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/update/gistemp/graphs/
[See the graph at http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/]
But recent scientific scrutiny has undermined the credibility of these well-publicised and long-accepted graphs. Melbourne researcher Warwick Hughes has shown that they failed to allow for artificial local heating from increases in surrounding asphalt, concrete, traffic and smog. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~hughesw7/ Some allowance was made for urban warming but not enough. Data from hundreds of smaller towns was thrown in without adjustment, as they were thought to be "rural areas". Reason? The compilers had used population data that was up to 30 years out of date. http://www.microtech.com.au/daly/press1-4.htm#HotCity
[See also] http://www.microtech.com.au/daly/graytemp/surftemp.htm
http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/Articles/2000/surface1.htm
http://users.erols.com/dhoyt1/index.html
Only a few weather stations, mostly on small islands or in remote areas, are completely free from urban warming biases. Tasmanian greenhouse sceptic John Daly has made a collection of data from these sites. http://www.microtech.com.au/daly/stations/stations.htm
Practically none show any warming. Especially striking is that scientific stations in polar regions, which according to greenhouse models should have warmed up as much as 5 degrees already, also show no overall trend, despite frequent stories about melting ice and snow.
But the real “smoking gun” has been the data from specially equipped satellites that have circled the earth since 1979. They take continuous measurements of the temperature in the free atmosphere, above the smog and local heating at the surface. The data have been painstakingly refined by John Christy at the University of Alabama at Huntsville and Roy Spencer of NASA, and are correct to a hundredth of a degree. Over more than 21 years, they show only a tiny global warming of 0.1 degrees - and were even registering a slight fall until the big El Niño three years ago. http://www.atmos.uah.edu./essl/msu/background.html
[Regraphed at] http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/nasa.gif
Overestimation of the warming potential of CO2
Overall, the evidence suggests that warming caused by the rise in greenhouse gases has so far been negligible. But model projections of future temperatures assumed it was substantial, and that doubling CO2 could raise temperatures by around 2.5 degrees. http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/press-00.htm#TAR-draft [ follow instructions at “click here”, press “continue” twice and see e.g. Summary for Policymakers, p. 6.]
The highly respected American solar scientist Doug Hoyt has highlighted cooling effects left out in calculating the 2.5 degree figure. These include increased evaporation from plants, reduced atmospheric transparency from CO2 itself, and the energy taken by lifting more water vapour into the air. Hoyt describes the way the models treat the water cycle as “energetically impossible”. http://users.erols.com/dhoyt1/annex12.htm
The draft Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released earlier this year, still clung to 2.5 degrees for CO2 doubling. But the question most modellers are now asking is not whether they should scale it down, but by how much. Several research institutes have already re-run their models using 2.0 degrees. But Hoyt and others say this should be slashed to as little as 0.5 degrees.
http://users.erols.com/dhoyt1/annex5.htm
http://www.microtech.com.au/daly/forcing/moderr.htm
http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/library/earthmatters/spring2000/pages/page8.html
No one knows for sure exactly how much warming a doubling of CO2 would cause. The answer is probably somewhere between 0.5 and 2.0 degrees - in which case, current projections of warming need to be scaled down by 20 to 80 per cent.
Exaggerating the speed of greenhouse gas build-up
The speed of greenhouse gas build-up also has to be taken into account. Most climate change simulations have projected a standard increase in greenhouse gases of one per cent a year. This helps model results to be compared. But it is no longer a reasonable real-world assumption.
http://www.meto.govt.uk/sec5/CR_div/Anim/sul.html
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk:80/cru/info/scen/
http://www.users.bigpond.com/kparish/climate/tar-gray/tar-spm.htm
[esp. comment on p.3, line 15]
[See the graphs at] http://www.dar.csiro.au/cc/gh_gg.htm
The graphs show recent trends in greenhouse gas concentrations, as measured by CSIRO. None are rising at anywhere near 1 per cent a year. The most important greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, currently accounts for 370 parts per million in the atmosphere, and is rising by 1.5 ppm a year. Most other greenhouse gases are levelling off or even falling.
On present trends it would take over 200 years for total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to double from their current levels. They might never double at all if new power sources come on stream.
Daly points out that the 1 per cent increase assumed in the models compounds each year, making CO2 double in only 70 years. http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/press-00.htm#1%
Thus the models give the impression that any warming that does occur will happen three times faster than is likely in reality.
Dubious greenhouse research
Each new scientific advance makes the threat from greenhouse warming seem smaller and more remote. But subtantial reaseach funds have already been spent to investigate the impacts of a warming which is so far barely detectable, and unlikely ever to be very serious.
Sea level modelling has been a particular waste of time. It initially led to dire predictions of submerged island nations and the inundation of the Ganges basin. Now satellite measurements since 1992 have proven that mean sea level around the world has hardly changed a jot.
http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/Articles/2000/sea.htm
This came as no surprise to Daly, who had done substantial research on one of the oldest tidemarks in the world, cut in stone on a small island off Port Arthur in 1841. Documented historical measurements against this mark show mean tide has moved only 2 centimeters since the late 19th century.
Six recent IPCC “scenarios” predicted an average sea level rise of 31 centimeters over the next 100 years. http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/press-00.htm#TAR-draft [ follow instructions at “click here”, press “continue” twice and see e.g. Summary for Policymakers, p. 11.] This is far lower than earlier guesstimates, but is still based on the now questionable model projections of warming. In fact, a number of scientists, on both sides of the greenhouse debate, actually believe a small warming would reduce sea level, because of greater snowfall in the Antarctic and the evaporation of gases from crystals on the seabed.
http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid%5F467000/467928.stm
http://www.sepp.org//NewSEPP/sealevel.html
A lot of greenhouse research has been silly and some of it even cruel. Earlier this year, it was revealed that the Australian Antarctic Division had been conducting experiments that severely injured elephant seals on Macquarie Island, south of Tasmania. A visiting state government wildlife officer discovered that scientists had been branding and tagging elephant seals, producing large infected wounds. The seals were also routinely subjected to “stomach lavaging”, supposedly to see how climate change among other things was affecting their feeding habits.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s116022.htm
The warmers respond
Some greenhouse proponents have reacted to the crisis of confidence in their theory by retreating into denial. When one former IPCC mandarin received calculations from a German scientist suggesting that the IPCC’s estimate of the warming potential of CO2 was five times too high, he fired back that he wanted to be deleted from the scientist’s mailing list, sniffing that “Your messages have so far not provided me with new meaningful information.”http://www.microtech.com.au/daly/forcing/forcing2.htm#Bolin1
Others have tried to explain the lack of observed warming by claiming that industrial aerosols are scattering sunlight before it reaches the surface. http://www.pewclimate.org/projects/env_science.pdf, [esp.p.6f]. But Daly and Hoyt have pointed out that, if this were true, places downwind of industrial centers would be cooler than everywhere else. In fact they are warmer because of the urban heat island effect. Taking them out of the temperature calculation only makes “global warming” even more negligible than before. http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/sulphur.htm
James Hansen of NASA has perhaps been shrewder in responding to the holes in the greenhouse scenario. Hansen has a key role in the debate as it was his 1988 testimony to the US Senate that first triggered global alarm over greenhouse warming. Two years ago he conceded that CO2 probably didn’t have the warming potential that the models had assumed.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/gpol/abstracts/1998.HansenSatoL.html
Now he suggests concentrating on reducing non-CO2 greenhouse gases and recently told the New York Times: “The prospects for having a modest climate impact instead of a disastrous one are quite good, I think.” http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/081900sci-environ-climate.html
Growing apostasy among heads of meteorological agencies
The heads of other official climate bodies have been walking a tightrope. If they admit that greenhouse warming poses no serious threat in the 21st century, they risk losing research funds and being seen to rat on their own researchers. But if they say nothing they risk public anger and ridicule when the penny finally drops.
John Zillman, Director of the Bureau of Meteorology and President of the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, knows this better than most. He gingerly told Channel 9’s Sunday programme in November 1997: “I am just a little bit less confident than the IPCC as a whole that we know enough about the science to say the statements as firmly as we have made them so far.” http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/01_cover_stories/article_161.asp
The former Secretary-General of the WMO, Wijn Nielsen, has been less discreet. After his term was over, he blurted out to the major German financial daily, the Handelsblatt, that the desire for research funds was the reason that scientists were, against their better judgement, supporting “climate hysteria”. http://members.aol.com/HZingel3/Index.html, [click on “Klima and Ozon” and on “Die politische Seite der angeblichen Klimaerwärmung durch CO2”]
This year the President of the American Association of State Climatologists, George Taylor, finally “came out” on the issue, stating in an open letter:
“Ten years ago, I believed the modellers that global warming was a serious problem that needed attention and intervention. As I studied the issue year by year, I became less and less convinced that the "problem" was truly serious. My current bottom line: while human activities doubtless influence climate (on a local, regional, and even a global scale), the human-induced climate change from expected increases in greenhouse gases will be a rather small fraction of the natural variations. I don't foresee global warming causing big problems, and believe that even if we controlled every molecule of human emissions we would still see substantial climate change, just as we always have.” http://www.ocs.orst.edu/reports/nascomm.html
Bureaucratic momentum vs. practical reality
Scientifically, the greenhouse scare is largely over. But a substantial bureaucratic machine created to respond to it is still running on empty. Thousands of taxpayer-funded delegates will go The Hague for earnest discussions about national greenhouse gas inventories and how to create an international market for “carbon credits”.
The idea is that cutting carbon emissions by funding cleaner power plants or new forests - even overseas - could earn credits that countries could trade and eventually add to their Kyoto Protocol emission limits. But the Protocol will only come into force if 55 countries ratify it, including enough industrial countries to account for 55 per cent of their total 1990 emissions. http://www.unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html, [ Article 25.] This is now very unlikely.
The reason is that most developed nations are already way over their targets. Their Energy Departments are reporting that meeting them would cost billions, reducing GDP by up to 4 per cent. http://www.heritage.org/library/categories/enviro/bu288.html#5
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/kyoto/cost.html
http://www.ncpa.org/studies/s224.html
And in any case, developing countries as rich as Singapore and Taiwan have no target to meet. Multinationals could transfer any amount industrial activity to those countries, and not worry how much CO2 they put up the smokestack. Even if the Protocol is ratified, there is still no penalty for countries that fail to meet their target, and the Protocol explicitly says that a new agreement would be required to impose any.
http://www.unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html [Article 18]
Fat chance. The Kyoto process has become a global game of “let’s all pretend”.
Meanwhile the Kyoto targets have already toppled one government. Earlier this year, the ruling coalition in Norway tried to block a proposal to build two new gas-fired power stations, claiming they would push Norway over its Kyoto target. After a stormy debate in Parliament, the government lost a no-confidence motion on the issue and was forced to resign. http://www.europe.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/03/09/norway.govt.02/index.html
Obstacles to common sense
Alan Oxley, former chief Australian trade negotiator in Geneva, suggests the sensible course would be to forget about the Kyoto Protocol and concentrate on research to improve energy efficiency. More effort is also needed on real and urgent environmental problems - loss of biodiversity and habitat, salination, air and water pollution - that have been overshadowed and outfunded by greenhouse hype. http://www.lavoisier.com.au/, [Oxley article, at end.]
But a more likely outcome is some face-saving climbdown that commits governments to carbon inventories, monitoring, incentives, emissions trading “pilot schemes” and so on.
Such projects will at least keep the jobs of a growing army of global warming bureaucrats around the world, many of whom pay no attention to developments in what they call “the science” of the greenhouse scenario. A senior international official was recently asked off the record whether he actually believed that growth in greenhouse gases posed a serious threat to humanity. “I hope so,” he chuckled. “Otherwise I’m out of a job.”
The problems have yet to be answered for.
The article provides a broad set of links to background material.
But it doesn't matter how many holes get blasted in the global warming hoax, we'll still get articles like this one that start out in the first paragraph (the only one many people will ever read) implying that the "sceptics" were wrong and it's now accepted scientific fact that manmade CO2 emissions are changing the climate, even though it goes on for another 40 column inches and offers nothing to substantiate that claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I've heard enough extraordinary claims to last me a lifetime. Time to start showing us a little proof along with the hyperbole.
What problems?
What problems?
The problems that invalidate the UN sponsored IPCC's Gobal Warming theories.
The article cites material from Daly's website, same as you, in evidence of that.
Climatic temperature is predominantly a consequence of Solar heating/cooling arising from variation of solar radiance, plus astronomical & geophysical events affecting surface & atmospheric albedo.
Climate Catastrophe, A spectroscopic Artifact?
Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse
A Look at Environmental Changes and "Global Warming"
The Bottom Line:
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Globally Averaged Atmospheric Temperatures
This chart shows the monthly temperature changes for the lower troposphere - Earth's atmosphere from the surface to 8 km, or 5 miles up. The temperature in this region is more strongly influenced by oceanic activity, particularly the "El Niño" and "La Niña" phenomena, which originate as changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulations in the tropical Pacific Ocean. The overall trend in the tropospheric data is near zero, being +0.04 C/decade through Feb 2002. Click on the chart to get the numerical data. |
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Ice Ages & Astronomical Causes
Figure 1-1 Global warming
Figure 1-2 Climate of the last 2400 years Figure 1-3 Climate of the last 12,000 years
Figure 1-4 Climate of the last 100,000 years
Figure 1-5 Climate for the last 420 kyr, from Vostok ice |
Seems as though there is room for substantial doubt as to any negative effect human created CO2, Methane etc. may have on our Climate future.
At least these folks believe so:
Petition Project: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm
During the past 2 years, more than 17,100 basic and applied American scientists, two-thirds with advanced degrees, have signed the Global Warming Petition.
Specifically declaring:
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."
Signers of this petition so far include 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists (select this link for a listing of these individuals) who are especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.
Signers of this petition also include 5,017 scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences (select this link for a listing of these individuals) make them especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide upon the Earth's plant and animal life.
Nearly all of the initial 17,100 scientist signers have technical training suitable for the evaluation of the relevant research data, and many are trained in related fields.
But then Global Warming is not an econonmist's area of expertise.
The mind boggles -- I suppose the companion publication is called Cynical Boxers? ;-)
Making money on it is.
Q. What ever happened to the whole 'world running out of oil by 2000' tempest that was doing the rounds when I was a kid in the seventies? A. It went the same way as this 24 karat bullsh1t that educated folks like Katie Couric and Dan Rather cry so many crocodile tears over.
Making money on it is.
All to true. Give an economist a project grant and they will expound on any topic as long as the well doesn't run dry.
Economist's run by the same rule a computer modelers, garbage in -- garbage out.
Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!
Molon Labe !!
If you are related to the Bagehot family of The Economist fame, do I have an answer for you (I canceled that subscription over the magazine's globalist environmental stupidity). Global warming is more a creation of large oil companies than it is anyone else, ESPECIALLY British Petroleum, Mobil/Exxon, and Shell. They want to make money playing the carbon credit market to control the global economy, especially through tax-guraanteed investment transfers to the developing world through the World Bank and the IMF (collecting political spending money with UN Tobin taxes in the Bank of International Settlements along the way). The Feds are simply doing what they have always done: responding to campaign money.
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