An Inconvenient Truth

[the_idle_threat]

Another view:

Viewpoint: Get off warming bandwagon

By Professor William M Gray of Colorado State University

As a boy, I remember seeing articles about the large global warming that had taken place between 1900 and 1945. No one understood or knew if this warming would continue. Then the warming abated and I heard little about such warming through the late 1940s and into the 1970s.

In fact, surface measurements showed a small global cooling between the mid-1940s and the early 1970s. During the 1970s, there was speculation concerning an increase in this cooling. Some speculated that a new ice age may not be far off.

Then in the 1980s, it all changed again. The current global warming bandwagon that US-European governments have been alarming us with is still in full swing.

Not our fault

Are we, the fossil-fuel-burning public, partially responsible for this recent warming trend? Almost assuredly not.

These small global temperature increases of the last 25 years and over the last century are likely natural changes that the globe has seen many times in the past.

This small warming is likely a result of the natural alterations in global ocean currents which are driven by ocean salinity variations. Ocean circulation variations are as yet little understood.

Human kind has little or nothing to do with the recent temperature changes. We are not that influential.

There is a negative or complementary nature to human-induced greenhouse gas increases in comparison with the dominant natural greenhouse gas of water vapour and its cloud derivatives.

It has been assumed by the human-induced global warming advocates that as anthropogenic greenhouse gases increase that water vapour and upper-level cloudiness will also rise and lead to accelerated warming - a positive feedback loop.

It is not the human-induced greenhouse gases themselves which cause significant warming but the assumed extra water vapour and cloudiness that some scientists hypothesise.

Negative feedback

The global general circulation models which simulate significant amounts of human-induced warming are incorrectly structured to give this positive feedback loop.

Their internal model assumptions are thus not realistic.

As human-induced greenhouse gases rise, global-averaged upper-level atmospheric water vapour and thin cirrus should be expected to decrease not increase.

Water vapour and cirrus cloudiness should be thought of as a negative rather than a positive feedback to human-induced - or anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases.

No significant human-induced greenhouse gas warming can occur with such a negative feedback loop.

Climate debate has 'life of its own'

Our global climate's temperature has always fluctuated back and forth and it will continue to do so, irrespective of how much or how little greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere.

Although initially generated by honest scientific questions of how human-produced greenhouse gases might affect global climate, this topic has now taken on a life of its own.

It has been extended and grossly exaggerated and misused by those wishing to make gain from the exploitation of ignorance on this subject.

This includes the governments of developed countries, the media and scientists who are willing to bend their objectivity to obtain government grants for research on this topic.

I have closely followed the carbon dioxide warming arguments. From what I have learned of how the atmosphere ticks over 40 years of study, I have been unable to convince myself that a doubling of human-induced greenhouse gases can lead to anything but quite small and insignificant amounts of global warming.

The author is a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado where he is an expert in tropical meteorology.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/...ge/1023334.stm


___________________________________________


I'm not saying this guy is right and his colleagues are wrong, but I think it's important to see there are two sides to this debate, and it's not all just politics.

[Harlan Huckleby]

The author is a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado where he is an expert in tropical meteorology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Gray

Hey, OK, he's an interesting gadfly. A 76-year-old professor emeritus of meteorology, not a climatology expert. Look at his website, all his academic articles are on tropical storms. He's been grinding axe against global warming for 20 years as a hobby. The existence of some intelligent people who take some unusual positions is no big deal.

Well, the "Science Magazine" survey found a grand total of ZERO (0) peer-reviewed articles on climate change that took issue with core thesis: humans are dominant factor in generating GW. Weigh this against a handful of skeptics in the popular press.

In another article on GW Skeptics, I found this interesting summary of their strategy (but note comment "they're winning" was prior to the report returned from National Academy of Sciences):

The skeptics don't have to win the argument, they just have to stay in the game, keep things stirred up and make sure the politicians don't pass any laws that have dangerous climate change as a premise. They're winning that battle. The Senate had hearings on climate change this spring but has put off action for now. The Bush administration is hoping for some kind of technological solution and won't commit itself to cuts in emissions.

The skeptics have a final trump in the argument: Climate change is actually good. Growing seasons will be longer. Plants like carbon dioxide. Trees devour it. This demonized molecule, CO2, isn't some kind of toxin or contaminant or pollutant -- it's fertilizer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305_pf.html

[Harlan Huckleby]

LOL. My retort would be that the article is from 1992! Ha! Beat you to it you old slut!

I know that Global Warming was wildly contested in the 1980's, so ya, your 14-year-old survey might be reasonable reflection of that time.

But again: Surveying meteorologists is a little strange. climatology is a specialty.

[Harlan Huckleby]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305_pf.html

If you have interest in this topic, you really MUST read this article. It is a long, detailed look at the community of skeptics, and their arguments. VERY informative.

The skeptics are a small, ragtag group who disagree among themselves. But that said, they might be right! We'll know in about about 50 years.

[SkinBasket]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...301305_pf.html

If you have interest in this topic, you really MUST read this article. It is a long, detailed look at the community of skeptics, and their arguments. VERY informative.

The skeptics are a small, ragtag group who disagree among themselves. But that said, they might be right! We'll know in about about 50 years.

Well, some of us will know. You'll probably be dead. Then again, I'll probably be dead too. So we won't know.

[OKC PackerFan]

AP INCORRECTLY CLAIMS SCIENTISTS PRAISE GORE?S MOVIE

http://www.epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=257909

AP INCORRECTLY CLAIMS SCIENTISTS PRAISE GORE?S MOVIE



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




June 27, 2006

The June 27, 2006 Associated Press (AP) article titled ?Scientists OK Gore?s Movie for Accuracy? by Seth Borenstein raises some serious questions about AP?s bias and methodology.

AP chose to ignore the scores of scientists who have harshly criticized the science presented in former Vice President Al Gore?s movie ?An Inconvenient Truth.?

In the interest of full disclosure, the AP should release the names of the ?more than 100 top climate researchers? they attempted to contact to review ?An Inconvenient Truth.? AP should also name all 19 scientists who gave Gore ?five stars for accuracy.? AP claims 19 scientists viewed Gore?s movie, but it only quotes five of them in its article. AP should also release the names of the so-called scientific ?skeptics? they claim to have contacted.

The AP article quotes Robert Correll, the chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment group. It appears from the article that Correll has a personal relationship with Gore, having viewed the film at a private screening at the invitation of the former Vice President. In addition, Correll?s reported links as an ?affiliate? of a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that provides ?expert testimony? in trials and his reported sponsorship by the left-leaning Packard Foundation, were not disclosed by AP. See http://www.junkscience.com/feb06.htm

The AP also chose to ignore Gore?s reliance on the now-discredited ?hockey stick? by Dr. Michael Mann, which claims that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere remained relatively stable over 900 years, then spiked upward in the 20th century, and that the 1990?s were the warmest decade in at least 1000 years. Last week?s National Academy of Sciences report dispelled Mann?s often cited claims by reaffirming the existence of both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. See Senator Inhofe?s statement on the broken ?Hockey Stick.? (http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=257697 )

Gore?s claim that global warming is causing the snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro to disappear has also been debunked by scientific reports. For example, a 2004 study in the journal Nature makes clear that Kilimanjaro is experiencing less snowfall because there?s less moisture in the air due to deforestation around Kilimanjaro.

Here is a sampling of the views of some of the scientific critics of Gore:

Professor Bob Carter, of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Australia, on Gore?s film:

"Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."

"The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science." ? Bob Carter as quoted in the Canadian Free Press, June 12, 2006

Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT, wrote:

?A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse.? - Lindzen wrote in an op-ed in the June 26, 2006 Wall Street Journal

Gore?s film also cites a review of scientific literature by the journal Science which claimed 100% consensus on global warming, but Lindzen pointed out the study was flat out incorrect.

??A study in the journal Science by the social scientist Nancy Oreskes claimed that a search of the ISI Web of Knowledge Database for the years 1993 to 2003 under the key words "global climate change" produced 928 articles, all of whose abstracts supported what she referred to as the consensus view. A British social scientist, Benny Peiser, checked her procedure and found that only 913 of the 928 articles had abstracts at all, and that only 13 of the remaining 913 explicitly endorsed the so-called consensus view. Several actually opposed it.?- Lindzen wrote in an op-ed in the June 26, 2006 Wall Street Journal.

Roy Spencer, principal research scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville, wrote an open letter to Gore criticizing his presentation of climate science in the film:

??Temperature measurements in the arctic suggest that it was just as warm there in the 1930's...before most greenhouse gas emissions. Don't you ever wonder whether sea ice concentrations back then were low, too??- Roy Spencer wrote in a May 25, 2006 column.

Former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball reacted to Gore?s claim that there has been a sharp drop-off in the thickness of the Arctic ice cap since 1970.

"The survey that Gore cites was a single transect across one part of the Arctic basin in the month of October during the 1960s when we were in the middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were done in the warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology,? ?Tim Ball said, according to the Canadian Free Press.


# # # # #

[Harlan Huckleby]

Note: This article is at a federal government website. But it comes from the office of Jim Inhofe, the Republican in the Senate who is leading the charge against global warming legislation. See:

http://www.epw.senate.gov/majwelcome.cfm?party=rep

That's not to say that all the counter-arguments presented here are without merit. But put it in context.

Again, I urge everyone to read the article about the shape of this debate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305_pf.html

Some excerpts from that article:

LET US BE HONEST about the intellectual culture of America in general: It has become almost impossible to have an intelligent discussion about anything.

Everything is a war now. This is the age of lethal verbal combat, where even scientific issues involving measurements and molecules are somehow supernaturally polarizing. The controversy about global warming resides all too perfectly at the collision point of environmentalism and free market capitalism. It's bound to be not only politicized but twisted, mangled and beaten senseless in the process. The divisive nature of global warming isn't helped by the fact that the most powerful global-warming skeptic (at least by reputation) is President Bush, and the loudest warnings come from Al Gore.

Human beings may be large of brain, but they are social animals, too, like wolves, and are prone to behave in packs. So when something like climate change comes up, the first thing people want to know is, whose side are you on? All those climatic variables and uncertainties and probabilities and "forcings" and "feedback loops," those cans of worms that Bill Gray talks about, get boiled down to their essence. Are you with us or against us?

The skeptics feed on alarmism. They love any sign that global warming is a case of mass hysteria. Someone like Myron Ebell, an analyst at CEI, freely admits that, as an advocate in a politicized battle, he tries to make "the best case against alarmism." Everyone, on both sides, is arguing like a lawyer these days, he says. "What is going on right now is a desperate last-ditch Battle of the Bulge type effort by the forces of darkness, which is relying heavily on the lockstep/groupthink scientific community."

The president's science adviser, John Marburger, thinks the politicized debate has made it almost impossible to talk sensibly about the issue. "There seems to be the general feeling that somehow the administration doesn't feel that climate change is happening," he says. "That's completely wrong." The administration just doesn't think the problem can be solved with the "magic wand" of regulation.

......

There's a certain kind of skeptic who has no patience for the official consensus, especially if it has the imprimatur of a government, or worse, the United Nations. They focus on ambiguities and mysteries and things that just don't add up. They say the Official Story can't possibly be true, because it doesn't explain the [insert inexplicable data point here]. They set a high standard for reality -- it must never be fuzzy around the edges.

"They argue not as scientists but as lawyers," says Pieter Tans, who runs a lab at NOAA in Boulder, Colo., where he examines bottles of air taken from monitoring stations all over the planet. "When they argue, they pick one piece of the fabric of evidence and blow it up all out of proportion . . . Their purpose is to confuse, so that the public gets the idea that there is a raging scientific debate. There is no raging scientific debate."

[OKC PackerFan]

Good read HH.

[the_idle_threat]

The skeptics feed on alarmism. They love any sign that global warming is a case of mass hysteria.

And the proponents of GW are not guilty of alarmism? What about polar ice caps gone if we don't take drastic action in the next decade? NY City underwater anyone? Perhaps it is not alarmism at all to wonder if these people are part of a mass hysteria.

There's a certain kind of skeptic who has no patience for the official consensus, especially if it has the imprimatur of a government, or worse, the United Nations. They focus on ambiguities and mysteries and things that just don't add up. They say the Official Story can't possibly be true, because it doesn't explain the [insert inexplicable data point here]. They set a high standard for reality -- it must never be fuzzy around the edges.

"They argue not as scientists but as lawyers," says Pieter Tans, who runs a lab at NOAA in Boulder, Colo., where he examines bottles of air taken from monitoring stations all over the planet. "When they argue, they pick one piece of the fabric of evidence and blow it up all out of proportion . . . Their purpose is to confuse, so that the public gets the idea that there is a raging scientific debate. There is no raging scientific debate."

If there's no scientific debate, then I guess the quotes from Drs. Bob Carter, Richard S Lindzen, Roy Spencer and Tim Ball in the article above are just made up or something.

I'm skeptical of an "official consensus" when it is alarmist, and the people claiming the consensus are ignoring their own peers' criticism and are urging us to do so as well. Those of us who understand the scientific method also understand that we should distrust any scientist who says "I'm right because I'm a scientist and you are not, and ignore the dissent from other scientists who disagree with me." This is the kind of "scientific" reasoning that brought us cold fusion.

[mraynrand]

Huck wrote:

"LET US BE HONEST about the intellectual culture of America in general: It has become almost impossible to have an intelligent discussion about anything.

Everything is a war now. This is the age of lethal verbal combat, where even scientific issues involving measurements and molecules are somehow supernaturally polarizing."


Interesting. This is exactly what Robert Bork predicted in his 1996 book "Slouching Towards Gomorrah" - specifically that all subject matters would become politicized. Certainly this has happend with global warming. It's embarrassing to see scientists who are experts in their field (Biology, Chemistry, etc.) sign letters endorsing the 'consensus' view that human generated CO2 is driving global warming, when they may know nothing about the experimental techniques and the stregth of the predictions. Ahh, the unbiased pursuit of the truth by our non-agenda driven scientists. What a breath of fresh air! (pun intended). Good luck figuring out what is real or unreal in this political science environment (puns intended).

[Harlan Huckleby]

The skeptics feed on alarmism. They love any sign that global warming is a case of mass hysteria.

And the proponents of GW are not guilty of alarmism? What about polar ice caps gone if we don't take drastic action in the next decade?

I beleive concern is justified. One person's prudence is another person's alarmism. It depends on how you see the range of possibilities and probabilities. duh.

Their purpose is to confuse, so that the public gets the idea that there is a raging scientific debate. There is no raging scientific debate."

If there's no scientific debate, then I guess the quotes from Drs. Bob Carter, Richard S Lindzen, Roy Spencer and Tim Ball in the article above are just made up or something.

You left off the adjective "raging". I think it is quite accurate to say there is no raging debate. The skeptics (with in Climate Science) are small in number. Yes, there are dissenters from the consensus, and the system being modeled is so mind-boggling complex, that we can't be certain which side is correct.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Good luck figuring out what is real or unreal in this political science environment (puns intended).

But the truth (or some approximation of it) IS going to come out. Only a question of time. Every year more data is collected, models are refined or discarded. "Climate Science" is a relatively new field of study, growing exponentially.

Any significant changes will have to await the Republicans independently deciding to make them. There is NO WAY this problem could be addressed by just half the country. It is much easier to block change than it is to make change.

I'm not that upset that nothing is happening now. I think what needs to happen is a MASSIVE switch from hydrocarbon to nuclear. Nobody is even thinking about it yet. Reducing emissions now would be just dent in problem, according to my intuition. I want to see complete conversion to hybrid cars, followed by electric cars. We aren't close to that political consensus.

[MJZiggy]

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/aboutus/mission/viewpoint/fueleconomyclaimsneedarealitycheck1005/index.htm?resultPageIndex=1&resultIndex=1&searchTerm=mileage%20accuracy

The above link is an article by Consumer Reports done last August about accuracy in fuel economy listings in autos (including hybrids) that shows an inflation of the numbers of mpg ratings. Between this and the question of what to do with the spent batteries (which have a life of approxmately 100K miles before needing replacing), I question whether going to all-hybrid all the time is necessarily the correct answer. It's still likely a good choice for the SUV market as their abysmal mileage might make the expended battery worth it.

Did we discuss alternative crops for ethanol production? I read here and talk to hubby who's been doing research and don't want to be repetitive if it's been hashed out here already.

[Harlan Huckleby]

ziggy,

I miss the connection between fuel economy and desirability of hybrids. The idea (AFAIK) behind a hybrid is that you would be running electrically while city driving. I'm not trying to save money for consumers, I'm trying to get away from internal combustion engine.

Also, I don't know much about it, but I don't see ethanol as anything too exciting. I know it burns cleaner in many respects, but I imagine CO2 is similar problem, ethanol is just another hydrocarbon. Ethanol production is renewable, but it has it's own environmental costs.

Guess I look at energy as a simpleton: There's a billion times more energy in the nucleus of an atom than there is in the chemical bonds. So the right track is nuclear power, that's where you'll get a lot of energy from a small amount of fuel. Burning shit is for cavemen. We need electrical devices that can use nuclear-generated power.

[MJZiggy]

From an emissions standpoint, yes, hybrids do run cleaner, but the question still remains, what do you do with all those spent batteries?