Guest Opinion: Global Warming Twenty Years Later

From http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/globalwarming.html:

Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research. A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes. Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures. The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years." [Telegraph]

Global warming and melting polar ice caps are not just problems here on Earth. Mars is facing similar global changes, researchers say, with temperatures across the red planet rising by around 0.65 degrees over the last few decades. [Register]

Neptune has been getting brighter since around 1980; furthermore, infrared measurements of the planet since 1980 show that the planet has been warming steadily from 1980 to 2004. As they say on Neptune, global warming has become an inconvenient truth. [World Climate Report]

Looking at annual global temperatures, it is apparent that the last decade shows no warming trend and recent successive annual global temperatures are well within each year's measurement errors. Statistically the world's temperature is flat. The world certainly warmed between 1975 and 1998, but in the past 10 years it has not been increasing at the rate it did. No scientist could honestly look at global temperatures over the past decade and see a rising curve. It is undisputed that the sun of the later part of the 20th century was behaving differently from that of the beginning. Its sunspot cycle is stronger and shorter and, technically speaking, its magnetic field leakage is weaker and its cosmic ray shielding effect stronger. So we see that when the sun's activity was rising, the world warmed. When it peaked in activity in the late 1980s, within a few years global warming stalled. [Telegraph]

Okay, take notes, there will be a quiz at the end of class.

First of all, greenhouse effect is not a bad thing. Without it, our planet would not support life as we know it, as the average temperature would be too cold to support liquid water.

Water vapor is the single most potent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, trapping more heat than carbon dioxide and methane put together. Estimates of the impact of water vapor on global warming vary widely from a minimum of 60% of all greenhouse effect to 98% of all greenhouse effect, but even at the minimum of 60%, that leaves 40% of greenhouse effect to be shared by all other chemicals combined, including carbon dioxide and methane (which has ten times the greenhouse capacity pound for pound as carbon dioxide).

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Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded.

China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. [DailyTech 2/27/2008]

Excerpt: Two years ago, it seemed like nothing could stop the global warming train. Most of the media, those in Hollywood, politicians (many on both sides of the cultural divide), and ?enlightened environmentalists? were all telling us that man was causing runaway warming of the earth?s atmosphere, meaning global catastrophe only decades ahead for all of us. Scary stuff. The problem is that a majority of those in this almost religious movement have little training in atmospheric science, and little understanding of the issue.

They jumped on the bandwagon because it matches their worldview, or pads their pocket. This issue has generated great wealth on both sides of the argument, and I need to say up front I have absolutely no financial interest in climate. I am paid the same regardless of whether man is involved in climate change or not, and I have never taken a dime for a speech on the subject. The simple truth is that the anthropogenic global warming train has slowed to a crawl, and the riders are jumping off as the facts are discovered. [?] I encourage all of you to read material on BOTH sides of the issue and make up your own mind. Mr Gore, the science is ?not settled?, and the invitation for a debate remains wide open. Heaven help us this fall when ABC television tells us that the world, as we know it, is about to end because of ?global warming?. Never let facts get in the way of a good story, especially one that scares you to death. I consider myself an environmentalist. There are some serious environmental issues out there. ?Global warming? is not one of them.

Global Warming Movement Turns Cool

James Spann

Let me warn you, this is a little longer than my usual posts here, but it was prompted by a big op-ed article in the Birmingham News this morning. Take the time to read it, if you dare. Seems like our local paper has settled on one side of the climate change debate, which is certainly their right. But, I have the right to publish this article as well?.

Two years ago, it seemed like nothing could stop the global warming train. Most of the media, those in Hollywood, politicians (many on both sides of the cultural divide), and ?enlightened environmentalists? were all telling us that man was causing runaway warming of the earth?s atmosphere, meaning global catastrophe only decades ahead for all of us.

Scary stuff.

The problem is that a majority of those in this almost religious movement have little training in atmospheric science, and little understanding of the issue. They jumped on the bandwagon because it matches their worldview, or pads their pocket. This issue has generated great wealth on both sides of the argument, and I need to say up front I have absolutely no financial interest in climate. I am paid the same regardless of whether man is involved in climate change or not, and I have never taken a dime for a speech on the subject.

The simple truth is that the anthropogenic global warming train has slowed to a crawl, and the riders are jumping off as the facts are discovered.

What is the truth? Lets begin with something we all can agree on. The climate IS changing. It has always changed, it is changing now, and it will always change.

Beyond that, here are some simple facts that make those left on the global warming train very uncomfortable:

• The earth is no warmer now than it was in 1998.
• Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but a gas indispensable to plant life. Plants, in turn, release oxygen, which sustains animal and human life.
• The primary greenhouse gas is water vapor, not carbon dioxide.
• The lack of solar activity in recent months suggests global cooling might be our biggest potential climate change problem in coming years.
• The planet has had weather disasters, extremes, and anomalies since it has been here. We just didn?t have 24 hour news channels and the Internet in prior decades to spread the news.

I have been doing the weather on local television for 30 years, and EVERY YEAR I have had people come up to me and tell me that they can ?never remember the weather being this strange?.

Most of those that you see and hear speaking on the subject have little scientific knowledge. Here is a quote from Dr. Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, from an article he penned recently:

?Alarmists like Al Gore will use pseudo-scientific justifications and comparisons in their attempt to make a connection between carbon dioxide and global warming. Even though CO2 is necessary for life on Earth, the alarmists insist on calling it a pollutant, referring to our atmosphere as an ?open sewer.? For instance, Gore likes to point out that Venus has far more CO2 in its atmosphere than the Earth does, and its surface is hot enough to melt lead. Therefore, more CO2 causes warming. But we also know that the Martian atmosphere has 15 times as much CO2 as our own atmosphere, and its surface temperature averages about 70 deg. F below zero. So you see, in science a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.?

Dr. James McClintock (marine biologist at UAB) today, in an op-ed piece published by the Birmingham News, claims that Antarctica is ?warming quickly?. Dr. McClintock, I am sure, is an excellent marine biologist, and I would not even make an effort to challenge his knowledge of that science. But, what is his background in atmospheric science? And, where does that claim come from?

Here is what Certified Consulting Meteorologist (CCM) Joe D?Aleo says about this:

?The shattered part of the Wilkins ice sheet was 160 square miles in area, which is just 0.01% of the total current Antarctic ice cover, like an icicle falling from a snow and ice covered roof,? D?Aleo wrote on March 25. ?We are very likely going to exceed last year?s record [for Southern Hemisphere ice extent]. Yet the world is left with the false impression Antarctica?s ice sheet is also starting to disappear,? D?Aleo added.

And, from climate scientist Ben Herman, past director of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics and former Head of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona: ?It is interesting that all of the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) stories concerning Antarctica are always about what?s happening around the [western] peninsula, which seems to be the only place on Antarctica that has shown warming. How about the net ?no change? or ?cooling? over the rest of the continent, which is probably about 95% of the land mass, not to mention the record sea ice coverage recently.?

I also should note that the mythical UN IPCC ?consensus? continues to crumble? Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist who specializes in optical waveguide spectroscopy from the University of Tokyo, and a top UN IPCC Scientist, calls global warming fears: the ?worst scientific scandal in history? in the weblog of former Colorado State Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke.

Here is what Canadian climatologist Tim Ball says about the IPCC: ?The IPCC is a political organization and yet it is the sole basis of the claim of a scientific consensus on climate change. Consensus is neither a scientific fact nor important in science, but it is very important in politics. There are 2500 members in the IPCC divided between 600 in Working Group I (WGI), who examine the actual climate science, and 1900 in working Groups II and III (WG II and III), who study ?Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability? and ?Mitigation of Climate Change? respectively. Of the 600 in WGI, 308 were independent reviewers, but only 32 reviewers commented on more than three chapters and only five reviewers commented on all 11 chapters of the report. They accept without question the findings of WGI and assume warming due to humans is a certainty. In a circular argument typical of so much climate politics the work of the 1900 (less than one percent of the scientific population) is listed as ?proof? of human caused global warming. Through this they established the IPCC as the only credible authority thus further isolating those who raised questions.?

I find it interesting that most of the predictions coming from the IPCC are based on computer model output. Those of us in the trench, who deal with the Earth?s atmosphere every day, know that computer model data is often horrible 24 hours in advance? how bad can it be out to 50 or 100 years?

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine this month announced that 31,072 U.S. scientists (9,021 with PhDs) signed a petition stating that ?? There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will cause in the future, catastrophic heating of the Earth?s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth?s climate??

John Coleman, meteorologist and founder of The Weather Channel, calls the GW movement the greatest scam in history.

I encourage all of you to read material on BOTH sides of the issue and make up your own mind. Mr Gore, the science is ?not settled?, and the invitation for a debate remains wide open.

Heaven help us this fall when ABC television tells us that the world, as we know it, is about to end because of ?global warming?. Never let facts get in the way of a good story, especially one that scares you to death.

I consider myself an environmentalist. There are some serious environmental issues out there. ?Global warming? is not one of them. One of the best ways to become a truly environmentally concerned person is to walk the banks of an Alabama river or stream for a half day and pick up trash and garbage. Anyone want to join me?

Let's recap on the inconvenient things that you, in your blatant dishonesty by omission, choose to ignore:

1. Most scientists do not believe human activities threaten to disrupt the Earth’s climate. More than 17,000 scientists have signed a petition circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine saying, in part, “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” (Go to www.oism.org for the complete petition and names of signers.) Surveys of climatologists show similar skepticism.
2. Our most reliable sources of temperature data show no global warming trend. Satellite readings of temperatures in the lower troposphere (an area scientists predict would immediately reflect any global warming) show no warming since readings began 23 years ago. These readings are accurate to within 0.01ºC, and are consistent with data from weather balloons. Only land-based temperature stations show a warming trend, and these stations do not cover the entire globe, are often contaminated by heat generated by nearby urban development, and are subject to human error.
3. Global climate computer models are too crude to predict future climate changes. All predictions of global warming are based on computer models, not historical data. In order to get their models to produce predictions that are close to their designers’ expectations, modelers resort to “flux adjustments” that can be 25 times larger than the effect of doubling carbon dioxide concentrations, the supposed trigger for global warming. Richard A. Kerr, a writer for Science, says “climate modelers have been ‘cheating’ for so long it’s almost become respectable.”
4. The IPCC did not prove that human activities are causing global warming. Alarmists frequently quote the executive summaries of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations organization, to support their predictions. But here is what the IPCC’s latest report, Climate Change 2001, actually says about predicting the future climate: “The Earth’s atmosphere-ocean dynamics is chaotic: its evolution is sensitive to small perturbations in initial conditions. This sensitivity limits our ability to predict the detailed evolution of weather; inevitable errors and uncertainties in the starting conditions of a weather forecast amplify through the forecast. As well as uncertainty in initial conditions, such predictions are also degraded by errors and uncertainties in our ability to represent accurately the significant climate processes.”
5. A modest amount of global warming, should it occur, would be beneficial to the natural world and to human civilization. Temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period (roughly 800 to 1200 AD), which allowed the Vikings to settle presently inhospitable Greenland, were higher than even the worst-case scenario