Posted on 01/05/2005 11:22:41 AM PST by CHARLITE
Eleven distinguished scientists, most of whom specialize in climatology, on November 16 published an open letter to Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who has repeatedly sponsored congressional legislation that mirrors the Kyoto Protocol, which was rejected by the U.S. Senate in 1997 by a vote of 95-0. The letter disputes assertions by McCain and other alarmists that the Arctic climate is undergoing remarkable and catastrophic climate change. Below are excerpts from the text of the letter.
Dear Senator McCain:
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report by the Arctic Council documents significant ecosystem response to surface temperature warming trends that occurred in some areas since the mid-19th century and in the last thirty years.
Arctic climate varies dramatically from one region to another, and over time in ways that cannot be accurately reproduced by climate models. The quantitative impacts of natural and anthropogenic factors remain highly uncertain, especially for a region as complex as the Arctic.
For example, for Greenland's instrumental surface temperatures a team of experts headed at Los Alamos National Laboratory recently found:
"Since 1940, however, the Greenland coastal stations data have undergone predominantly a cooling trend. At the summit of the Greenland ice sheet, the summer average temperature has decreased at the rate of 2.2 degrees C per decade since the beginning of the measurements in 1987. This suggests that the Greenland ice sheet and coastal regions are not following the current global warming trend."
Analysis of ice corings of the Penny Ice Cap on Baffin Island show[s] that the recent warming trend is unexceptional compared to natural variability in centuries past, when the enhanced greenhouse effect cannot have had much impact:
"Our sea-salt record suggests that, while the turn of the [21st] century was characterized by generally milder sea-ice conditions in Baffin Bay, the last few decades of sea-ice extent lie within Little Ice Age variability and correspond to instrumental records of lower temperatures in the Eastern Canadian Arctic over the past three decades."
From a detailed study of sea core sediment from the last 10,000 years in the Chukchi Sea, researchers concluded that, "in the recent past, the western Arctic Ocean was much warmer than it is today." They also found that "during the middle Holocene [approximately 6,000 years ago] the August sea surface temperature fluctuated by 5 degrees C and was 3-7 degrees C warmer than it is today." The relatively recent discovery of the PDO, or Pacific Decadal Oscillation, points to a strong natural component of the recent warming trend. Researchers noted in 1997:
"Our results add support to those of previous studies suggesting that the climatic regime shift of the late 1970s is not unique in the century-long instrumental climate record, nor in the record of North Pacific salmon production. In fact, we find that signatures of a recurring pattern of interdecadal climate variability are widespread and detectable in a variety of Pacific basin climate and ecological systems."
The Great Pacific Climate Shift of 1976-1977 is typical in the documented pattern of natural climate fluctuations going back at least several centuries. In Alaska in particular, although the onset of the 1976-1977 shift ended the several-decades-long period of cold in the middle of the 20th century recorded by many of Alaska's good weather station records, it returned temperatures to warmth seen in the early decades of the 20th century. Thus, it is unsurprising that Alaskan ecosystems have responded to recent warmth, which has the characteristic step-upward shape of the PDO, but not the gradual but large warming trend implied by the enhanced greenhouse effect.
The PDO may have shifted back in 1998-99 to its mid-20th century state, which would tend to deliver sharply cooler temperatures in the next several decades to the western U.S., including western and southern Alaska. For example, scientists from British Columbia's Institute of Ocean Sciences, Fisheries, and Oceans and Oregon State University's College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences found recent cooling of the North Pacific:
"Subsurface upper ocean waters off Oregon and Vancouver Island were about 1 degree C cooler in July 2002 than in July 2001. The anomalously cool layer coincides with the permanent halocline which has salinities 32.2 to 33.8, suggesting an invasion of nutrient-rich Subarctic waters. The anomalously cool layer lies at 30-150 m.
"Surface air temperatures (SAT) going back 125 years were studied from 'newly available long-term Russian observations of SAT from coastal stations, and sea-ice extent and fast-ice thickness from the Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, and Chuckchi seas.' Those researchers found 'strong intrinsic variability, dominated by multi-decadal fluctuations with a timescale of 60-80 years.' Comparing those measures of Arctic regional variability to that of computer simulations, the researchers concluded that observations do 'not support amplified warming in Polar Regions predicted by GCMs [General Circulation Models].'
"A comprehensive study of Arctic temperature records found that 'in the Arctic in the period 1951-90, no tangible manifestations of the greenhouse effect can be identified.' However, strong year-to-year variability is present.
"Those examples demonstrate that Arctic climate has and will continue to exhibit intricate patterns not reliably reproduced by global climate simulations, thus underscoring their scientific incompleteness and need for advances in Arctic climate science, in measurements, theory, and models.
"Ecosystems and humans survived the warming at the beginning of the 20th century, as they survived the warmth from A.D. 900 to 1200, when Thule people migrated from Alaska across the Arctic while Vikings farmed in Greenland soil now permafrost and sailed in Arctic waters now permanent pack ice. They survived the warming of the last 15,000 years as earth emerged from the last glacial period, whose termination produced much more radical temperature shocks than those observed in the last several decades."
We appreciate your efforts to support scientific fact-finding concerning responses of Arctic ecosystems to climate variability.
Sincerely,
R. Tim Patterson, Ph.D. Professor of Geology Carleton University
Tim Ball, Ph.D. Retired Professor of Climatology University of Winnipeg
Anthony Lupo, Ph.D. Professor of Atmospheric Science University of Missouri Columbia
David Legates, Ph.D. Associate Professor in Climatology University of Delaware
Pat Michaels, Ph.D. Professor of Environmental Sciences University of Virginia Virginia State Climatologist
George Taylor, M.S. Meteorology Oregon State Climatologist
Gary D. Sharp, Ph.D. Scientific Director Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study
Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D. Principal Research Scientist The University of Alabama in Huntsville
Jon Reisman
Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy
University of Maine at Machias/ Maine Public Policy
Institute Scholar
Willie Soon, Ph.D.
Science Director, Tech Central Station
Sallie Baliunas, Ph.D.
Enviro-Science Editor, Tech Central Station
For more information ...
The full text of the open letter, including references, is available online at
http://www.climatechangeissues.com/cci-refute.php
you guys have to know that all these "open letters" that are sent to people like McVain and Kerry are either not read by the person they are addressed too and instead ready by some middle of the road staffer or the person it does get addressed reads it and is delighted that they are being paid attention too. Especially in the case of McVain....
I just ignore him as much as possible....
McInsane will just ignore this since acknowleding it would have him lose some of his pet conservative standing at The New York Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, WashPost, LASlimes, etc...
McCainiac is a 100% freeze-dried government-issued liberal.
Ok!! Any country or Continent not following the current accepted theory of global warming is here by ask to please vacate the planet immediately and posthaste!
I'm sure that this has been mentioned before, but Michael Crichton's latest novel, State of Fear, does an excellent job of putting this drivel to rest.
I know, you're right about that and it is unfortunate because the people that these letters are addressed to could learn so much from them...... Take care Mike.
I flew over the Northern Iced Pole four weeks ago and it looked quite freezened over to me.
Don't bother me with facts, I'm too busy with the hypotheticals and listening to Chicken Little! /sarcasm/
didnt you know? those guys already know more than us little people /sarcasm :)
just finished it. It was informative but wasn't his most pulse-threatening.
which is why neither is especially electable on a national stage.....
LOL!
I don't think global warming rises to the status of scientific theory. It seems the left and the scientists who get grants from global warming research have hope that is true, but that is about it.
Hope everyone noticed these scientists were DISPUTING claims that the ARTIC is MELTING.
I was referring to Senator McClaim.
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