Satellite and weather-balloon research released Friday removes a last bastion of scientific doubt about global warming, researchers say.
Surface temperatures have shown small but steady increases since the 1970s, but the tropics had shown little atmospheric heating - and even some cooling. Now, after sleuthing reported in three papers released by the journal Science, revisions have been made to that atmospheric data.
Climate expert Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, lead author of one of the papers, says that those fairly steady measurements in the tropics have been a key argument "among people asking, 'Why should I believe this global warming hocus-pocus?' "
After examining the satellite data, collected since 1979 by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather satellites, Carl Mears and Frank Wentz of Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, Calif., found that the satellites had drifted in orbit, throwing off the timing of temperature measures. Essentially, the satellites were increasingly reporting nighttime temperatures as daytime ones, leading to a false cooling trend. The team also found a math error in the calculations.
"Our hats are off to (them). They found a real source of error," says atmospheric scientist John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, whose team produced the lower temperature estimates.
When examining the balloon data, Yale University researchers found that heating from tropical sunlight was skewing the temperatures reported by sensors, making nights look as warm as days.
Once corrected, the satellite and balloon temperatures align with other surface and upper-atmosphere measures, as well as climate change models, Santer says.
Global warming's pace over the past 30 years has actually been quite slow, a total increase of about 1 degree Fahrenheit. It is predicted to accelerate in this century.
Mark Herlong of the George C. Marshall Institute declined to comment. The group, financed by the petroleum industry, has used the data disparities to dispute the views of global-warming activists. In recent years, however, the institute has softened its public statements, acknowledging that the planet is indeed getting warmer but still maintaining that the change is happening so slowly that the impact is minimal.
grundle
08-12-05, 11:04 AM
I suppose there will be 3 main kinds of reactions to an article like this:
"Global warming is a fraud perpetuated by commies to bring an end to capitalism."
"We need to use less energy. Er, uh, not me, personally. But other people should use less energy."
"We should build more nuclear power plants. Just make sure they aren't designed, built, owned, or operated by dictatorship governments."
My reaction is in that third group.
Timber
08-12-05, 11:11 AM
I suppose there will be 3 main kinds of reactions to an article like this:
"Global warming is a fraud perpetuated by commies to bring an end to capitalism."
"We need to use less energy. Er, uh, not me, personally. But other people should use less energy."
"We should build more nuclear power plants. Just make sure they aren't designed, built, owned, or operated by dictatorship governments."
My reaction is in that third group.
You forgot my stance. "I'll be dead by then so what's all the fuss about?"
DodgingCars
08-12-05, 11:25 AM
Or this response:
Maybe global warming won't be so bad. I'll soon be vacationing in Antartica!
Actually, I think few people have argued that there hasn't been a rise in temperatures, but argued whether or not this was human influenced climate change.
OldDude
08-12-05, 11:28 AM
Interesting, although that article gives a terrible explanation of the radiosonde data.
The MSNBC article has the same conclusions but gives a much better explanation
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8917093/
I find the "satellites have drifted" argument hard to swallow since you aim rather large, directional antennas at them to communicate. You have to know where they are to talk them. But I haven't found the actual paper yet.
OldDude
08-12-05, 11:56 AM
OK, I found them, sort of.
Science magazine offers online preprints via "Science Express" of articles that will be published over the next few weeks. My library carries Science, so eventually I can read these, but I don't have access now.
If anyone cares, here's the info:
http://www.sciencemag.org/sciencexpress/recent.shtml
Updated on August 11, 2005
Science Express provides rapid electronic publication of selected Science papers. Print versions of these papers will appear in Science in several weeks. Some editorial changes may occur between the online version and the final printed version. Access to the PDF version of the papers is available free to all AAAS members. Nonmembers can view papers with the pay-per-view option. . . .
Radiosonde Daytime Biases and Late-20th Century Warming
Steven Sherwood, John Lanzante, and Cathryn Meyer
Published online August 11 2005; 10.1126/science.1115640 (Science Express Reports )
Amplification of Surface Temperature Trends and Variability in the Tropical Atmosphere
Benjamin D. Santer, Tom M. L. Wigley, Carl Mears, Frank J. Wentz, Stephen A. Klein, Dian J. Seidel, Karl E. Taylor, Peter W. Thorne, Michael F. Wehner, Peter J. Gleckler, Jim S. Boyle, W. D. Collins, Keith W. Dixon, Charles Doutriaux, Melissa Free, Qiang Fu, Jim E. Hansen, Gareth. S. Jones, Reto Ruedy, T. R. Karl, John R. Lanzante, Gerald A. Meehl, V. Ramaswamy, Gary Russell, and Gavin A. Schmidt
Published online August 11 2005; 10.1126/science.1114867 (Science Express Reports )
The Effect of Diurnal Correction on Satellite-Derived Lower Tropospheric Temperature
Carl A. Mears and Frank J. Wentz
Published online August 11 2005; 10.1126/science.1114772 (Science Express Reports ) . . .
Duran
08-12-05, 12:00 PM
Questions that have to be answered before I care:
Is the earth actually getting measurably warmer as a long-term trend? Long term accurate data is required for this. 30 years is not long term, unless we're talking huge swings in temperature.
Is this bad? What are the effects?
What causes this? Is it humans, or is it "natural"?
What can we do about it?
In most of the discussions I've read/seen, there are far too many assumptions made for my liking.
DodgingCars
08-12-05, 12:19 PM
Is this bad? What are the effects?
This is one that isn't discussed much. It assumed that it would be bad, but we don't really know. I think I'd rather live now than during the ice age. :)
Red Dog
08-12-05, 12:41 PM
I watched the Day After Tomorrow last night. Pretty humorous - I always get a kick out of the disaster flicks. What I can't understand is why there was so much outrage about it - there was very little science in the movie so who cares if the premise was faulty. Just another disaster flick.
Myster X
08-12-05, 02:08 PM
Where's movielib response?
movielib
08-12-05, 03:50 PM
Where's movielib response?
Sorry, I've been too busy at work.
Yes, there has been global warming. About .5 degrees celsius in the last century. I don't see that this changes that well agreed upon figure (by both sides).
Yes, there is a human component. I think it's very small and there's nothing here to convince me otherwise.
If human caused warming is a very small part of overall global warming there is little we can do (as far as we know right now) - Kyoto or otherwise - to significantly change the future warming.
Kyoto is a massive waste of money for almost no benefit. See my oft posted link to the Global Warming Clock at junkscience.com:
If some errors have been made in the satellite readings it doesn't change much. Just means the surface readings may have been more accurate than we might have thought. On the other hand, there have been so many times that the "warmers" have said something that turns out to be false or misleading that I'd like to wait until the critiques are in before I just believe them.
From the article: Global warming's pace over the past 30 years has actually been quite slow, a total increase of about 1 degree Fahrenheit. It is predicted to accelerate in this century.
That is not accurate according to what I've read from many sources. the .5 degrees celsius warming is for a century and much of the warming was in the early part of the 20th century. So it doesn't make sense that there could be a whole degree fahrenheit (5/9 degree celsius) over the last thirty years. Also, I'm quite sure predictions of acceleration of the warming are far from universal.
movielib
08-17-05, 01:36 AM
Global Warming skeptic doesn't think new data mean much:
Sunday, August 14, 2005
By KENNETH KESNER
[Huntsville]Times Staff Writer kesner@htimes.com
Climate critics stick with position challenging causes
New satellite and weather-balloon research released last week gives climate scientists better data to work with, but contrary to some reports does not eliminate doubts about dramatic global warming, said Dr. John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
For more than 15 years, Christy and UAH research scientist Dr. Roy Spencer have studied satellite data about temperatures on Earth and in the atmosphere. The numbers didn't always match readings taken by weather balloons, particularly those launched in tropical areas.
That inconsistency - cited by skeptics as evidence that global warming theories are unproved - has been explained in research by Carl Mears and Frank Wentz of Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, Calif. They found the satellites' orbits drift, throwing off the timing of the daily series of air temperature measurements and causing them to be slightly cooler than the balloon readings.
Christy and Spencer were aware of that research and created formulas to apply to satellite data they've gathered over 26 years, from December 1978 through July 2005.
"We've already done all the corrections," Christy said Friday. "The error that was found was actually very minor."
The corrected data put the average rate of global warming at about 2.21 degrees Fahrenheit per century instead of the 1.58 degrees the UAH researchers had previously calculated. Christy said that is still a much more modest rate than proposed by many advocates of global warming theories.
He says that although there is some warming, the temperature data he studies do not support the case that human activity is causing Earth temperatures to rise at a dangerous rate that could cause a variety of problems, including melting the polar ice caps and a rise in ocean levels that threatens coastal areas.
The new information doesn't change his mind.
"We've long held that there is, very likely, a human imprint on the climate system," Christy said. "We're adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere" and doing other things to the planet, including deforestation and urbanization, that could drive up temperatures.
"It is fairly obvious that some portion of this warming is probably due to human influences," Spencer said in a statement. "What isn't clear is how much, or which influences."
Three studies released Thursday by the online version of the journal Science dealt with corrected temperature data from weather balloons and satellites used in a variety of computer climate models from around the world. All three conclude that the atmosphere - and the lowest layer, the troposphere, in particular - is warming more than was previously thought.
"We hope that these three papers together will advance the debate if not end it," said atmospheric scientist Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in a story for Knight Ridder News Service.
Christy was co-author of a major United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and serves as Alabama's official chief meteorologist. His position as a respected scientist who believes concerns about global warming are overblown has often put him in the spotlight: He's been the subject of a profile in Discover magazine and is regularly sought for comment by national and international reporters.
He said Friday that the scientific community is not of one mind about the extent of global warming, and that the corrected temperature data are not enough to change that. He contends the debate has become more political than scientific, and that it keeps us from paying attention to greater environmental problems, such as the need for clean water and the loss of forest and wildlife habitat as the Third World clears trees for fuel and grazing.
Spencer "and I would argue that the political debate over climate issues should always be driven by the data, not the other way around," Christy said.
Another scientist actually involved in the study charges "shenanigans":
http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu//?p=29
August 12, 2005
Comment on Today’s NY Times article “Errors Cited in Assessing Climate”
Filed under: Climate Science Reporting — Roger Pielke Sr. @ 10:47 am
In today’s NY Times there is an article entitled “Errors Cited in Assessing Climate Data.” In the article the following text was presented: (excerpts below)
“Other climate experts, however, said that the new studies were very significant, effectively resolving a puzzle that had been used by opponents of curbs on heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
‘These papers should lay to rest once and for all the claims by John Christy and other global warming skeptics that a disagreement between tropospheric and surface temperature trends means that there are problems with surface temperature records or with climate models,’ said Alan Robock, a meteorologist at Rutgers University.
The findings will be featured in a report on temperature trends in the lower atmosphere that is the first product to emerge from the Bush administration’s 10-year program intended to resolve uncertainties in climate science.
Several scientists involved in the new studies said that the government climate program, by forcing everyone involved to meet five times, had helped generate the new findings.”
The report that is referred to is the U.S. Climate Change Science Program Synthesis and Assessment Product (CCSP) “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere-Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences.” I am Convening Lead Author on the Chapter “What measures can be taken to improve the understanding of observed changes?”
This CCSP report, however, has not been finalized and important scientific discussions continue on its contents and how they are to be characterized. It is grossly inappropriate for members of the Committee to discuss the findings, in any manner, until it is formally completed and released. This is particularly the case as important parts of the report remain under discussion. To do otherwise is to play politics with the report in the media.
My concern is with the efforts by the committee to limit its focus and not recognize important science issues found in the peer-reviewed literature. In retrospect, this should not have been surprising as many of the members of the Committee are colleagues who have published together and share a similar perspective. A conflict between different perspectives on the science of climate change, with both sides supported by the academic literature, was evident in the first draft of the CCSP report which went out for review by the National Research Council and in my related minority report. The editor of the draft CCSP report, Tom Karl, refused to allow my minority report to be submitted to the NRC Committee for their formal review and response, or even voted on by the members of the CCSP Committee. It would have been fairly straightforward to enage in a more inclusive process, rather than resort to procedural steps to block inclusion of inconvenient perspectives.
The shenanigans continue — without my previous knowledge, an ad hoc replacement version of Chapter 6 was introduced three days ago which significantly conflicts with the version that I have led preparation of, and which we were close to finalizing. The original version of Chapter 6 that went out for NRC review was at that time accepted by everyone on the Committee, These revisions are also being performed with each of the other Chapters.
Yet several members of the Committee immediately adopted the new version which is in substantive conflict with the protocol of preparing the report. This is not how science assessments should work. Different viewpoints should be accommodated.
Science operates by taking into account legitimate, if differing perspectives. In this case, members of this CCSP committee are trying to enforce a perspective on climate science that may be widely shared, but not universally so among qualified scientists, as reflected in the peer-reviewed literature. A great irony here is that the work I’d like to see reflected in the report reflects a more systematic and pervasive human influence on climate, but others want to see a narrow focus targeted at recent political controversies. The committee is overreaching by trying to enforce a narrow perspective on climate science. In the end, this cannot be good for the scientific community.
movielib
08-21-05, 01:06 AM
More skeptical reaction:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,166150,00.html
Global Warming Doubt Dispelled? Not Really
Friday, August 19, 2005
By Steven Milloy
October 29, 2004
Is the debate now over for skeptics of global warming hysteria? Readers of USA Today may certainly have that impression.
“Satellite and weather-balloon research released today removes a last bastion of scientific doubt about global warming, researchers say,” reported USA Today on Aug.12.
Certainly the USA Today report was partially correct – the researchers did, in fact, “say” [read “claim”] that “the last bastion of scientific doubt” had been removed. But claims and reality often don’t match up.
Three papers published in the journal Science last week purport to debunk an important argument advanced by skeptics of the notion of catastrophic, manmade global warming. The skeptics’ argument is that while temperatures measured on the Earth’s surface seem to indicate that global temperatures have increased at a rate of about 0.20 degrees Centigrade per decade (deg. C/decade) since the 1970s, temperatures measured in the atmosphere by satellite and weather balloons have shown only a relatively insignificant amount of warming for the same time period (about 0.09 deg. C/decade).
The implication of the skeptics’ argument is that whatever warming seems to be happening on the Earth’s surface, similar warming isn’t happening in the atmosphere. This might mean that any observed surface warming is more likely due to the urban heat island effect -- where the heat-retaining properties of concrete and asphalt in urban areas artificially increase local temperatures -- rather than increasing atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
One of the new Science studies reported that the satellites had drifted in orbit, causing errors in temperature measurement. Corrections to the satellite data, according to the researchers, would increase the atmospheric warming estimate to 0.19 deg. C/decade -- more in line with the 0.20 deg. C/decade warming of the Earth’s surface. Another study reported that heating from tropical sunlight had skewed the balloon temperature measurements.
Ben Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the studies’ authors, told USA Today that, “Once corrected, the satellite and balloon temperatures align with other surface and upper atmosphere measures, as well as climate change models.”
So is it really game-set-match in favor of the global warming alarmists? Not so fast, say the skeptics.
When University of Alabama-Huntsville researcher Roy Spencer, a prominent climatologist, factored the newly reported corrections into his calculations, his estimate of atmospheric warming was only 0.12 deg. C/decade -- higher than the prior estimate of 0.09 deg. C/decade, but well below the Science study estimate of 0.19 deg C/decade and the surface temperature estimate of 0.20 deg. C/decade.
As to the claimed errors in the weather balloon measurements, Spencer says that no other effort to adjust the balloon data has produced warming estimates as high as those reported in the new study and that it will take time for the research community to form opinions about whether the new adjustments advocated are justified.
Climate expert Dr. Fred Singer of the Science and Environmental Policy Project says the temperature adjustments are “not a big deal.”
“Greenhouse theory says (and the models calculate) that the atmospheric trend should be 30 percent greater than the surface trend -- and it isn’t,” says Singer. “Furthermore, the models predict that polar [temperature] trends should greatly exceed the tropical values -- and they clearly don’t ... In fact, the Antarctic has been cooling,” adds Singer.
Singer also had some related thoughts concerning the gloom-and-doom forecasts concerning future temperatures.
Last January, a study in the journal Nature estimated that a doubling of atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide would increase global temperatures anywhere from 1.9 degrees Centigrade to 11.5 degrees Centigrade by mid-century. But Singer says the researchers “varied only six out of many more parameters necessary to model clouds… Their result confirms… that clouds are still too difficult to model and that climate models underlying the Kyoto Protocol have never been validated.”
So it’s far from “case-closed” on global warming skepticism. Moreover, aside from the controversy over the satellite and weather balloon data, many key climate questions remain unanswered including: whether humans are causing significant warming; whether warming is undesirable; and whether anything be done to avert any undesirable warming.
Because of its prohibitive costs, alarm over global warming has been rejected numerous times by President Bush and the U.S. Senate. European nations are already discovering that their economies can’t live with the Kyoto Protocol that was just implemented in February.
Despite alarmist media reports, global warming-mania is melting. It’s no wonder the alarmists are in such a hurry to close the book on the science.
It seems odd that the authors of these studies are so quick to claim that this is some sort of conclusive proof that global warming is a huge threat. Their conclusions seem to be exaggerated according to other scientists' interpretations, they say absolutely nothing about the how much the human contribution is and their numbers still don't add up as their models say they should. Making the wild "case closed" type statements, I think, does show that they are trying to win through smoke, mirrors and media hype. That doesn't seem very scientific to me.
al_bundy
08-21-05, 09:01 AM
who is seriously going to believe scientists from Alabama? It's like intelligent falling.
Now if they were from Berkely, it would be different.
Climate change sceptics bet $10,000 on cooler world
Two climate change sceptics, who believe the dangers of global warming are overstated, have put their money where their mouth is and bet $10,000 that the planet will cool over the next decade.
The Russian solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev have agreed the wager with a British climate expert, James Annan.
The pair, based in Irkutsk, at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, believe that global temperatures are driven more by changes in the sun's activity than by the emission of greenhouse gases. They say the Earth warms and cools in response to changes in the number and size of sunspots. Most mainstream scientists dismiss the idea, but as the sun is expected to enter a less active phase over the next few decades the Russian duo are confident they will see a drop in global temperatures.
Dr Annan, who works on the Japanese Earth Simulator supercomputer, in Yokohama, said: "There isn't much money in climate science and I'm still looking for that gold watch at retirement. A pay-off would be a nice top-up to my pension."
To decide who wins the bet, the scientists have agreed to compare the average global surface temperature recorded by a US climate centre between 1998 and 2003, with temperatures they will record between 2012 and 2017.
If the temperature drops Dr Annan will stump up the $10,000 (now equivalent to about £5,800) in 2018. If the Earth continues to warm, the money will go the other way.
The bet is the latest in an increasingly popular field of scientific wagers, and comes after a string of climate change sceptics have refused challenges to back their controversial ideas with cash.
Dr Annan first challenged Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is dubious about the extent of human activity influencing the climate. Professor Lindzen had been willing to bet that global temperatures would drop over the next 20 years.
No bet was agreed on that; Dr Annan said Prof Lindzen wanted odds of 50-1 against falling temperatures, so would win $10,000 if the Earth cooled but pay out only £200 if it warmed. Seven other prominent climate change sceptics also failed to agree betting terms.
In May, during BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the environmental activist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot challenged Myron Ebell, a climate sceptic at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in Washington DC, to a £5,000 bet. Mr Ebell declined, saying he had four children to put through university and did not want to take risks.
Most climate change sceptics dispute the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which suggest that human activity will drive global temperatures up by between 1.4C and 5.8C by the end of the century.
Others, such as the Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg, argue that, although global warming is real, there is little we can do to prevent it and that we would be better off trying to adapt to living in an altered climate.
Dr Annan said bets like the one he made with the Russian sceptics are one way to confront the ideas. He also suggests setting up a financial-style futures market to allow those with critical stakes in the outcome of climate change to gamble on predictions and hedge against future risk.
"Betting on sea level rise would have a very real relevance to Pacific islanders," he said. "By betting on rapid sea-level rise, they would either be able to stay in their homes at the cost of losing the bet if sea level rise was slow, or would win the bet and have money to pay for sea defences or relocation if sea level rise was rapid."
Similar agricultural commodity markets already allow farmers to hedge against bad weather that ruins harvests.
movielib
08-21-05, 02:53 PM
I saw that and I was considering posting it.
While I do believe sunspot activity has something to do with earth's climate there are many other factors and many of them are not well understood. The Russian skeptics seem to be looking only at sun activity and greenhouse gases. They may be right that sunspots are a bigger factor than greenhouse gases but there are many others as well.
Frankly I think they made a foolish bet. The earth has been warming and all the global warming skeptics I've read expect it to continue. It's just that the skeptics think the warming will be much less than the proponents think and also that humans have very little to do with it.
I think that the Russians will lose their bet and have to pay up. That's not a big deal. What is a big deal is that the warmers will do another "now we have conclusiove proof that nobody can deny that we're all going to global warming hell in a handbasket." They will get great gobs of publicity and propaganda material.
The late Julian Simon who won a famous bet with doomsayer Paul Ehrlich over the prices of five different metals chosen by Ehrlich (Simon bet the prices would fall over a decade and won on every metal) would understand this is not a bet to take. That doesn't mean the skeptics are wrong; they overwhelmingly believe that temperatures will rise. Just not very much and that the human factor is negligible.
al_bundy
08-21-05, 06:42 PM
if you have access to a news database you will find a ton of articles from the 1970s where scientists swear that the earth is headed for an ice age. 20 years of warming and now it's the opposite.
Alaska used to be warmer than it is today until an ice age made the land bridge and the first "indians" came here. Now that it's getting warmer again, it's all the humans' fault somehow.
grundle
08-22-05, 05:58 AM
if you have access to a news database you will find a ton of articles from the 1970s where scientists swear that the earth is headed for an ice age. 20 years of warming and now it's the opposite.
Yes.
The environmentalists were 100% sure that we were headed for an ice age.
And anyone who disagreed was a cold hearted bastard who didn't care about the environment:
In the 1970s headlines warned "Earth may be headed for another ice age" (The New York Times)
with "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation" and "a full-blown 10,000- year ice age" (Science magazine).
"Brace Yourself for Another Ice Age" (Science Digest),
because there were "ominous signs" that "the Earth's climate seems to be cooling down," and "meteorologists are almost unanimous" that "the trend will reduce agricultural productivity" (Newsweek).
"Glaciers had "begun to advance" and armadillos were retreating south from Nebraska (The Christian Science Monitor).
There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard- pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars' worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”
Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short- term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.
“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Vast fields of carbon dioxide ice are eroding from the poles of Mars, suggesting that the climate of the Red Planet is warming and the atmosphere is becoming slightly more dense.
Experts say that over time such changes could allow water to return to the Martian surface and turn the frigid planet into a ``shirt-sleeve environment.''
Michael A. Caplinger, a scientist with Malin Space Science Systems, said that if the rate of carbon dioxide erosion from the Mars poles continues for thousands of years, ``then it could profoundly amend the climate of Mars.''
``You would go from having to wear a spacesuit to just wearing a coat and an oxygen atmosphere,'' said Caplinger.
Caplinger is co-author of a study appearing in the journal Science that analyzes photos of Mars taken by an orbiting spacecraft. The photos were taken in 1999 and in 2001, a period of time that represents one Martian year. Mars is farther from the sun than the Earth and it takes the Red Planet about 23 months to complete one year, a single solar orbit.
Observers have long known that in the Martian winter there is a snow of carbon dioxide caused as temperatures plunge and the gas freezes out of Mars' thin atmosphere.
But the new study suggests that a dense cap of frozen carbon dioxide thought to be permanent at each of the Mars poles may not be all that permanent, said Caplinger.
``It is eroding away at a rapid pace and is going to continue to do that,'' said Caplinger. ``This is not a seasonal change.''
He said the photos suggest that the polar caps are dense slabs of frozen carbon dioxide that may have been deposited over centuries, much like the way seasonal snow on Earth accumulates to form a glacier.
``This stuff has been there for quite a while,'' he said. ``It is packed down and very smooth. We don't see evidence that it is blowing around or drifting.''
Instead, said Caplinger, the glacier-like carbon dioxide ice is eroding, rather like the way a glacier melts on Earth.
The key clue, he said, comes from examining the light patterns on pits at the Martian south pole. Comparing pictures taken a Martian year apart show that the pits are getting wider and deeper as a result of the retreat of the carbon dioxide ice, said Caplinger.
As the C02 ice erodes, it adds carbon dioxide to the Martian atmosphere, causing the ``air'' to get thicker over time. This would enable the planet to hold more of the sun's heat and, perhaps, eventually warm the whole planet enough for water to return to the Martian surface.
Caplinger said it is not known if there is enough carbon dioxide in the polar caps to bring about such an atmospheric change.
But his co-author, Michael C. Malin, said in a statement that if the atmosphere of Mars becomes dense enough, it would ``permit liquid water to persist at or near the surface.''
Other studies have shown that Mars was once awash with great basins of water, but the water is thought to have disappeared or become subsurface ice as the planet cooled and developed a thin C02 atmosphere.
Some experts suggested that any speculation about a Martian climate change is premature.
``This is a really neat observation,'' said Allan H. Treiman of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. But he said the pictures span a time too short to make predictions about permanent changes in the Mars climate.
``We don't have enough data on Mars to draw any clear conclusions about climate change,'' he said.
The Sun is more active than it has ever been in the last 300 years
Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release of greenhouse gases on Earth.
Climatologists and astronomers speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia say the present warming may be unusual - but a mini ice age could soon follow.
The sun provides all the energy that drives our climate, but it is not the constant star it might seem. Careful studies over the last 20 years show that its overall brightness and energy output increases slightly as sunspot activity rises to the peak of its 11-year cycle.
And individual cycles can be more or less active.
The sun is currently at its most active for 300 years.
That, say scientists in Philadelphia, could be a more significant cause of global warming than the emissions of greenhouse gases that are most often blamed.
The researchers point out that much of the half-a-degree rise in global temperature over the last 120 years occurred before 1940 - earlier than the biggest rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
Using ancient tree rings, they show that 17 out of 19 warm spells in the last 10,000 years coincided with peaks in solar activity.
They have also studied other sun-like stars and found that they spend significant periods without sunspots at all, so perhaps cool spells should be feared more than global warming.
The scientists do not pretend they can explain everything, nor do they say that attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be abandoned. But they do feel that understanding of our nearest star must be increased if the climate is to be understood.
GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) -- The winter hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica appears to have grown from last year but is still smaller than in 2003, when it was at its largest, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.
The U.N. agency's top ozone expert added that seasonal depletion of the protective gas layer, which filters harmful ultraviolet rays that can cause skin cancer, may become more pronounced in the near future before the problem diminishes.
Large reductions in the ozone layer, which sits about 15-30 km (9-19 miles) above the Earth, take place each winter over the polar regions, especially the Antarctic, as low temperatures allow the formation of stratospheric clouds that assist chemical reactions breaking down ozone.
The WMO said meteorological data showed last winter was warmer than in 2003 but colder than in 2004.
"At this stage it looks like this year's ozone hole will be quite average or maybe a little above average," Geir Braathen, WMO's ozone expert, told a news briefing.
Scientists say the hole spanned a record 29 million sq km (11 million sq miles) in September 2003, exposing the southern tip of South America.
The WMO said on Tuesday the area where temperatures are low enough for clouds to have formed -- an indication of the potential hole size -- now covered about 25 million square km.
"This area is near the 1995-2004 mean and higher than observed in 2004 but somewhat lower than in 2003," it said.
Industrial chemicals containing chlorine and bromine have been blamed for thinning the layer because they attack the ozone molecules, causing them to break apart. Many of the offending chemicals have now been banned.
Concentrations of such ozone-depleting substances have "leveled off" and are set to decline, Braathen said.
"We still expect the ozone hole to appear annually and it actually might be a little bit worse in the next five to 10 years, then the situation will start to improve," he said.
"It will still take several decades before these substances have disappeared from the atmosphere. We expect the annual recurring ozone hole to take place until maybe mid-century."
The Geneva-based WMO, which has 181 member states, bases its analysis on data collected from satellites, ground-based observations and balloons launched into the atmosphere.
waveform
08-23-05, 07:23 PM
It's all part of god's plan for "intelligent tanning."
waveform
08-23-05, 07:26 PM
Which is part of god's plan for "intelligent skin cancer" and "intelligent raising of sea levels."
OldDude
08-23-05, 08:06 PM
It's all part of god's plan for "intelligent tanning."
That could be. In "winter" at the South Pole, there is no sunlight and no UV exposure. Even at moderate latitudes, say 45 degrees south, the winter UV exposure is much less due to sun angle, than the summer exposure when the ozone layer has regrown. The "hole" only exists at a time when the UV exposure is basically negligible.
waveform
08-23-05, 09:14 PM
That could be. In "winter" at the South Pole, there is no sunlight and no UV exposure. Even at moderate latitudes, say 45 degrees south, the winter UV exposure is much less due to sun angle, than the summer exposure when the ozone layer has regrown. The "hole" only exists at a time when the UV exposure is basically negligible.
Well,then, those penguin condos should pretty much skyrocket in price over the next few years...well until the ice sheets start to sheer off...but I guess that makes them mobile homes.
al_bundy
08-23-05, 09:39 PM
Which is part of god's plan for "intelligent skin cancer" and "intelligent raising of sea levels."
what does the hole in the ozone have to do with global warming? they are caused by different things
sdcrym
08-24-05, 12:59 AM
who is seriously going to believe scientists from Alabama? It's like intelligent falling.
Now if they were from Berkely, it would be different.
-rolleyes- If you're going to criticize the researcher's statements, at least come up with something relevant to the topic at hand.
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/attack.htm
Dead
08-24-05, 08:11 AM
-rolleyes- If you're going to criticize the researcher's statements, at least come up with something relevant to the topic at hand.
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/attack.htm
I could be wrong, but I think he was going for sarcasm there, not insult.
al_bundy
08-24-05, 08:14 AM
i learned in logic class that you are only supposed to argue without breaking any of the fallacies. there is like 15 of them. But everyone knows that BS.
OldDude
08-24-05, 08:59 AM
Well,then, those penguin condos should pretty much skyrocket in price over the next few years...well until the ice sheets start to sheer off...but I guess that makes them mobile homes.
Except for that one peninsula, the ice is getting thicker everywhere else. The total ice mass on Antarctica is increasing (the Arctic is decreasing, but not as much as Antarctica is increasing). The "greenies" only want you to know a few selective facts (that support their agenda).
VinVega
08-24-05, 09:07 AM
Except for that one peninsula, the ice is getting thicker everywhere else. The total ice mass on Antarctica is increasing (the Arctic is decreasing, but not as much as Antarctica is increasing). The "greenies" only want you to know a few selective facts (that support their agenda).
See, global warming causes global cooling. We're headed for another Ice Age! -eek-
A scientist who has long disagreed with the dominant view that global warming stems mainly from human activity has resigned from a panel that is completing a report for the Bush administration on temperature trends in the atmosphere.
The scientist, Roger A. Pielke Sr., a climatologist at Colorado State University, said most of the other scientists working on the report were too deeply wedded to particular views and were discounting minority opinions on the quality of climate records and possible causes of warming.
"When you appoint people to a committee who are experts in an area but evaluating their own work," he said in an interview, "it's very difficult for them to think outside the box of their research."
Administration officials said the resignation would not affect the quality or credibility of the report, a draft of which is being finished in the next few weeks.
The report, the first product of President Bush's 10-year climate change research program, is likely to be closely scrutinized by climate scientists and environmental and industry groups for any sign of bias or distortion.
Its main focus is to explore why thermometers at the earth's surface, especially in the tropics, have measured more warming than has been detected by satellites and weather balloons in the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere up to where jetliners cruise.
Dr. Pielke contends that changes in landscapes like the spread of agriculture and cities could explain many of the surface climate trends, while most climate experts now see a clear link to accumulating emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide.
James R. Mahoney, an assistant secretary of commerce and the director of the federal climate research program, said the scientists involved in generating the report were "representative of the broad views" on the questions.
Mr. Mahoney noted that drafts of the climate report would be reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences and were subject to public comment.
"I'm disappointed that Dr. Pielke has chosen to resign over this," Mr. Mahoney said.
Dr. Pielke said he decided to resign after three papers on the troposphere trends were published online on Aug. 11 by the journal Science. The papers said errors in satellite and balloon studies in the tropics explained why earlier analyses failed to find warming in the troposphere.
Several authors of those papers, who are also authors of the coming government report, said at the time that the new findings would be discussed in the report.
Dr. Pielke said those statements were an effort to influence the shape of the final report.
Several authors of those papers denied this, saying the process of creating the reports is intended to be public, while the contents remain confidential for now.
John R. Christy, another author of the coming report who like Dr. Pielke doubts that human-caused warming poses a serious threat, said that while disagreements were normal, the effort to generate the report was improving understanding.
"This process is the worst way to generate scientific information," said Dr. Christy, who teaches at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. "Except for all the others."
Then Pielke's response:
http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/?p=36
Open Comment to Andy Revkin with Respect to your 23 August 2005 Article in the New York Times Regarding my Resignation from the CCSP Committee
Filed under: Climate Science Reporting — Roger Pielke Sr. @ 10:03 am
The reference to my perspective and to the reasons I resigned from the Committee are mischaracterized and erroneous in the New York Times article (subscription required). One major reason that the Climate Science weblog was launched was to correct such mistaken communications. Anyone who has read my blogs will recognize that your article is inaccurate as to how it characterizes my perspective on human-caused climate change and on the reasons for my resignation from the CCSP Committee.
My comments on your article appear below.
NY Times Article: “A scientist who has long disagreed with the dominant view that global warming stems mainly from human activity has resigned from a panel that is completing a report for the Bush administration on temperature trends in the atmosphere.”
Pielke Sr. Response: The well documented increases of atmospheric concentration of CO2 are due to anthopogenic emissions of this gas. This comes from vehicles, industry, biomass burning and other sources of combustion. CO2 warms the Earth’s climate system radiatively (i.e. it is a global warming effect). As I wrote in the article “Heat storage within the Earth system” and as summarized in the 2005 National Research Council report “Radiative forcing of climate change: Expanding the concept and addressing uncertainties” of which I was a co-author, the Earth’s climate system has warmed, and human activities certainly have contributed. To state that I have “long disagreed..that global warming stems from human activity” is a completely erroneous characterization of my perspective.
NY Times Article: “Its main focus is to explore why thermometers at the Earth’s surface, especially in the tropics, have measured more warming than has been detected by satellites and weather balloons in the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere up to where jetliners cruise.”
Pielke Sr. Response: Regardless of what some may claim, this focus is not the charge to the CCSP Committee as documented on the CCSP web page for this report, nor in the Asheville meeting that provided recommendations in the establishment of the Committee (see the Panel summaries). The Committee was supposed to investigate spatial as well as temporal trends of recent surface and tropospheric temperatures, which, in the last version that I saw, it failed to do. This will be clearly documented in my Public Comment. As the recent papers in Science attest, reconciling the globally averaged and tropical-zonally averaged surface and satellite temperature records is a closed issue, and one that I fully accept. It is the remaining issues that the Committee should be addressing but is not.
NY Times Article: “Pielke contends that changes in landscapes like the spread of agriculture and cities could explain many of the surface climate trends, while most climate experts now see a clear link to accumulating emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide.”
Pielke Sr. Response: This is a completely bogus statement of my conclusions on climate. My perspective on climate forcings is described by the NRC Report that I co-authored in which a diversity of climate forcings including the radiative effect of added CO2 is involved. I have repeatedly written in the peer-reviewed literature (e.g. see Nonlinearities, feedbacks and critical thresholds within the Earth’s climate system) that climate prediction (and therefore attribution to specific climate forcings) is a daunting challenge since the climate system is nonlinear and chaotic. Landscape change is only one of a number of climate forcings. I can only assume that this statement is written out of an intentional attempt to mischaracterize my work or simply a failure to comprehend my various peer-reviewed papers on this subject.
NY Times Article: “Pielke said he decided to resign after three papers on the troposphere trends were published online on Aug. 11 by the journal Science. The papers said errors in satellite and balloon studies in the tropics explained why earlier analyses failed to find warming in the troposphere. Several authors of those papers, who are also authors of the coming government report, said at the time that the new findings would be discussed in the report. Pielke said those statements were an effort to influence the shape of the final report.”
Pielke Sr response: This is also erroneous. You made no mention of the inappropriate shadow version of the Chapter that I was Convening Lead Author on that you were aware of, nor that it was not the publication of the papers, but the repeated cherry-picking of information from the draft Report that were prematurely presented to the media and to the Senate Committee that were the issue. What can explain this fictional reporting?
While readers of our Climate Science blog will be provided a correction, the more general readers of the NY Times will be presented with an extremely biased and error-laden view of this issue. I am simply aghast at the major errors and mischaracterizations in this article. I’d welcome your response.
Sincerely,
Roger A. Pielke Sr.
This seems to me a typical example of environmental reporting. Biased toward the sky-is-falling type of environmentalist's side and highly inaccurate in both the way it characterizes Pielke's position and the sequence of events. This is why most people probably believe the global warming (and other environmental issue) skeptics are completely over the edge and that their numbers are far fewer than they really are.
grundle
08-25-05, 12:34 PM
Global warming is very real, and here's one cause of it:
<b>GLOBAL WARMING ALERT: GORE BURNS 439,500 LBS OF FUEL TO ATTEND SUMMIT</b>
"The most vulnerable part of the Earth's environment is the very thin layer
of air clinging near to the surface of the planet, that we are now so
carelessly filling with gaseous wastes that we are actually altering the
relationship between the Earth and the Sun - by trapping more solar
radiation under this growing blanket of pollution that envelops the entire
world," Vice President Gore told the U.N. Global Warming conference of 159
nations this morning in Koyto, Japan.
<b>In what was one the most dramatic speeches in recent memory, Gore announced to world leaders: "Whether we recognize it or not, we are now engaged in an epic battle to right the balance of our Earth, and the tide of this battle will turn on when the majority of people in the world become sufficiently aroused by shared sense of urgent danger to join an all-out effort."
Applause filed the halls of the Kyoto International Conference Center. "We
must achieve a safe overall concentration level for greenhouse gases in the
Earth's atmosphere."
The message is serious. So serious in fact, the DRUDGE REPORT has
calculated that Vice President Al Gore is burning more than 439,500 pounds
of fuel, or 65,600 gallons, at a cost of more than $131,000 on his 16,000
mile daytrip, just to deliver the warning.</b>
Now that's commitment.
Air Force II's Global Warming Express features an itinerary that takes the
vice president from Washington to Florida to Washington to Alaska to Japan
and back -- all in just 72-hours.
Saturday, December 6, 1997
9:45 a.m. Air Force II departs Andrews AFB enroute Fort Myers, Fla.
12:05 p.m. Air Force II arrives Southwest Florida Regional Airport. Gate 69-A.
2 p.m. Vice President Gore addresses the 50th Anniversary/Rededication,
Everglades Municipal Airport, Everglades National Park.
6:40 p.m. Air Force II departs Florida en route AFB.
8:35 p.m. Air Force II arrives at Andrews Air Force Base.
9:45 p.m. -- Air Force II departs Andrews Air Force Base en route Elmendorf
Air Force Base
Sunday, Dec. 7
1:15 a.m. -- Air Force II arrives Elmendorf Air Force Base, Anchorage, Alaska
2:45 a.m. -- Air Force II departs Elmendorf Air Force Base en route Osaka, Japan
Monday, Dec. 8
5 a.m. -- Air Force II arrives Osaka International Airport, Osaka Japan
11:15 p.m. -- Air Force II departs Osaka, Japan en route Elmendorf Air Force
Base
12:35 p.m. -- Air Force II arrives Elmendorf Air Force Base, Anchorage, Alaska
2:05 p.m. -- Air Force II departs Elmendorf Air Force Base en route Andrews
Air Force Base
Tuesday, Dec. 9
12:45 a.m. -- Air Force II arrives Andrews Air Force Base
----
"The extra heat which cannot escape is beginning to change the global
patterns of climate to which we are accustomed. Our fundamental challenge
now is to find out whether and how we can change the behaviors that are
causing the problem."
Gore's plane, a Boeing 707 gas guzzler burns on average 4.1 gallons a mile.
The complete Washington to Florida to Washington to Alaska to Japan and
return to Washington trip calculated from commercial air mileage tables is
just over 16,000 miles total. Gas gallons needed for AIR FORCE II to go
16,000 miles: 65,600. Applying the average price of $2.01 per gallon of
Jet A to the 16,000 mile r/t -- the fuel cost alone passes $131,000.00.
There are 6.7 pounds per gallon of jet fuel. Total pounds of fuel burned on
Gore's Global Warming Express -- 439,500.
jdodd
08-25-05, 01:21 PM
"...when the majority of people in the world become sufficiently aroused by shared sense of urgent danger to join an all-out effort."
Is he talking about a gangbang here? He's talking about a gangbang, isn't he?!
movielib
08-27-05, 09:00 AM
Here is another example of a global warming skeptic (I use that for lack of a better word but it does not mean the "skeptic" thinks that global warming is pure hooey or that humans are not a factor; just that it's far less than the "warmers" say) having a hatchet job done on him by the mainstream press. This article is by an "award winning" environmental reporter (I guess you win environmental reporting awards by toeing the line of the more extreme environmentalists):
(It's a long article so I'm not reproducing it here. It's easy to read by clicking on the link.)
Now here is the respone by the subject of the article, George Taylor, the State Climatologist of Oregon. He cites the inaccuracies in the article, including quotes from his detractors (I've put Taylor's remarks in italics):
George Taylor, Oregon State Climatologist,
responds to the Willamette Week article written by Paul Koberstein
August 26, 2005
opening statement:
An article about me and my viewpoint on global warming was published on August 24, 2005 by Willamette Week. The article contained many misleading statements and errors. Below I address some of statements in the article with which I take issue.
George H. Taylor
August 26, 2005
willamette week article:
"He's also, according to his critics, one of the most dangerous men in Oregon."
taylor:
Dangerous? I’m merely expressing an opinion that runs counter to what some people think I should be saying. But I believe that the topic of the human influence on the environment should be open to debate, and I do not believe that it is "dangerous" to discuss it.
willamette week article:
"From his third-floor office in the Strand Agriculture building at Oregon State University, Taylor, 58, a state employee who runs an agency with a half-million-dollar annual budget, is often at work discrediting the well-established scientific facts about global warming."
taylor:
Not even close. State support for Oregon Climate Service is only $105,000 annually. But we share office space and personnel with the Spatial Climate Analysis Service, which gets no state money but relies on outside grants for support. Those total about $400,000 per year, for creating climate maps. Add our state support and you DO get a half-million, but the statement in the article is very misleading. I did point out to Mr. Koberstein that the state budget was much less than the combined budget, but unfortunately only the higher figure was listed.
willamette week article:
"His views have been read on the floor of the U.S. Senate and, most recently, influenced global-warming bills in Salem. In the past, he also has tried to undermine global-warming legislation in Canada."
taylor:
I was asked by Canadians to write a letter expressing my views on human effects on climate, which I did. No attempt was made to influence the legislature.
willamette week article:
"There is a valued and much-needed role for skeptics to question the prevailing view," says Philip Mote, Taylor's counterpart in Washington state and a professor at the University of Washington. "Once in a while, the skeptics are right. But there is no debate in the scientific community over whether human-caused global warming is possible or observed. The only way one could come up with that opinion is not being familiar with the scientific literature.'"
taylor:
The issue is not “do humans affect climate?” Clearly there IS a human influence. The question is, “how much?” In my opinion, natural variations dominate the climate system, and will continue to do so. I have NEVER denied the human influence, but unlike Phil Mote I do not believe human impacts dominate the climate system.
willamette week article:
"Taylor manages the state Climate Service website (www.ocs.oregonstate.edu), which runs on a state-funded OSU server. It's peppered with criticism of global-warming theories with little rebuttal from the theories' supporters."
taylor:
There is almost no mention of global warming theories on our server. There are cases where both sides of the argument are shown: for example, a statement I made about the subject as well as links to statements made in rebuttal by two of my colleagues (both of which were referenced in the WW article; I assume the writer obtained those critical statements about me from our Web site). I have endeavored to devote the OCS Web site to Oregon weather and climate issues rather than having it be a forum for global warming theories.
willamette week article:
"Taylor's position as the leading climate expert in Oregon, a state with a national environmental reputation, has given ammo to those who are hostile to the idea that the earth is warming up. On Jan. 4 of this year, Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a Senate floor speech, "As Oregon State University climatologist George Taylor has shown, Arctic temperatures are actually slightly cooler today than they were in the 1930s. As Dr. Taylor has explained, it's all relative.""
taylor:
Journal articles show that Arctic trends are similar to US trends and Oregon trends: the warmest decade of the last 100 years was the 1930s. In Oregon and the US, the warmest year was 1934. In the Arctic, it was 1937 (references available upon request).
willamette week article:
"Accuracy about global warming matters, Mote says. By spreading misinformation about the world's most important environmental issue, Taylor can encourage people not only to have doubts about proven science, but to become complacent. "People will conclude it's still uncertain," Mote says, "so we don't have to do anything.""
taylor:
The fact that humans have a minor effect on climate does not mean "we don’t have to do anything.” There are plenty of reasons to reduce our fossil-fuel use, for example, including air pollution, foreign trade, and high fuel cost. I ride a bicycle to work every day, partly for the exercise and partly to conserve resources. Most of my most vocal critics drive cars. I wish they all rode bicycles!
willamette week article:
"Scientists have had to find a different source for their climate data. They turned to tree rings, coral, and boreholes dug deep into ice and soil for information. They added some Fortran code and produced a series of results. Since the year 1000, global temperatures were essentially flat until around 1900. In the past 30 years they have been rocketing skyward. When plotted on a graph, the result looks like a hockey stick lying on the ice, its blade pointing toward the sky."
taylor:
The “hockey stick” graph which appeared in Nature in 1998 and was quickly adopted by the IPCC has been the subject of three scientific journal articles in the last 12 months, all of which have shown that it contains significant errors. There is an interesting blog site by one of the reviewers at www.climateaudit.org.
willamette week article:
"The facts of global warming have been confirmed by hundreds of climate scientists around the world, most of whom participated in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sponsored by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization. The panel issued its last report in 2001 and will update it in 2007. The IPCC says that global average surface temperatures have increased over the 20th century by about 0.6 degrees Celsius, or about 1.08 degrees Fahrenheit. Globally, it is very likely that the 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year. But the record shows a great deal of variability; for example, most of the warming occurred during two periods, 1910 to 1945 and 1976 to 2000."
taylor:
Fitting a straight line to a series that goes up and down cyclically is not always appropriate. Start a trend at a cool period (e.g., 1900) and end in a warm periods (the 1990s) and you get an upward trend. Start it at a warm period (say, the 1930s) and end it in a cool periods (1970s) and you get a negative trend. I distrust most linear trends. But what I do is ask myself, “are we seeing unprecedented climate conditions in recent years?” When the answer is “no,” as it is for Oregon, the US, and the Arctic, I’m a lot less worried than I would be if we were seeing things that have never happened before.
willamette week article:
"Satellite data confirm the results recorded by thermometers on the Earth's surface. They also show that the area of Earth covered by snow has decreased by about 10 percent since the late 1960s. Scientists have documented widespread retreats of glaciers and sea ice, and a serious thinning of the polar ice cap in the Arctic. The oceans are warmer since the 1950s, and sea levels have risen several inches in the past century."
taylor:
This is very common: pick a cool decade (the 1960s) and begin a trend there. Yes, snow cover probably HAS decreased since then. That’s why I prefer to look at a longer record. Granted, we have no satellite data from the 1930s, but a perusal of temperature and snow information shows that the earlier period was significantly warmer and less snowy than the cool 1960s.
willamette week article:
"The National Academy of Sciences, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science all agree that humans are forcing global temperatures upward."
taylor:
I am a member of the American Meteorological Society and a Certified Consulting Meteorologist. No one asked my opinion before crafting the Society’s statement. I understand the same is true of the others. And again, the human influence is acknowledged by scientists everywhere; it’s the DEGREE of influence that is being debated.
willamette week article:
"It is hard to find a single peer-reviewed journal article that agrees with Taylor's views. A report last December in the journal Science found that of 928 major peer-reviewed academic papers on the subject of climate change, all supported the consensus view that a significant fraction of recent climate change is due to human activities."
taylor:
The report cited has been widely discredited. There are hundreds of journal articles which support my viewpoint (regarding historical trends in climate in the last 100 years) (references available upon request).
willamette week article:
"Another expert is Patrick Michaels, a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and a visiting scientist with the Marshall Institute. In a statement posted on a State of Oregon website run by Taylor, Michaels claims he doesn't see global warming as a problem; what worries him more is a global conspiracy to shut down skeptics like himself."
"Taylor himself has supplemented his government salary with oil money. On Nov. 22, 2004, the ExxonMobil-funded website Tech Central Station (techcentralstation.com-"Where Free Markets Meet Technology") published the 2,300-word article by Taylor that Inhofe had read on the Senate floor. Taylor's article was a review of a report that had shown significant warming in the Arctic. Taylor, who has written seven articles on climate change for Tech Central Station, says he was paid $500 for the review."
taylor:
The statement by Michaels was posted in 2001, in response to a climate statement by the National Academy of Sciences, which was also posted. I wanted to include both sides of the argument, and Dr. Michaels is a renowned expert in climate science (and State Climatologist for Virginia). Why not address both sides?
willamette week article:
"Taylor's review said the authors of the Arctic study looked at only the last 35 years, ignoring data from the 1930s that show conditions were comparable to those of today. "Why not start the trend there?" he wrote. "Because there is no net warming over the last 65 years?""
"It's not clear what report Taylor was reading. In fact, the Arctic study takes into account an entire thousand years and places the Arctic in the context of the entire globe."
"In fact, the report does list most of Taylor's references-among hundreds of others."
taylor:
My review of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment was made shortly after its release in November, 2004. I reviewed a very cursory summary, and made my comments based on that summary. A longer report was issued in June, 2005, and I have not published comments on that report, but I was pleased to see that more detail and many additional references had been added. These included most of the journal articles I had listed in my review, so perhaps my review enabled the authors to bring more balance to their report. Perhaps, in a sense, I served as an unofficial pe[e]r reviewer.
willamette week article:
'"The best explanation I can come up with is, George is very tied into the conservative bent," Coakley added. "He gets all his information from the conservative-type think tanks. George picks it up and regurgitates it. Some of the stuff is half-baked at best, but sometimes it's so bad we have to call him on it and write letters to the editor. It's just not right; it just counters all the evidence.'"
taylor:
Actually, I get most of my information from peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Climate, Journal of Geophysical Research, and Climate Research. The articles I write (including, for example, the Arctic article) are based on journal articles and contain full bibliographies. Admittedly, I seldom give“both sides” of the argument, because the “other side” (the one that suggests that human activities exert a dominant role in the climate system) is well-represented in journals and the media. My goal is to be a voice saying “wait, maybe there’s another side to this. Take a look at THIS data and see what you think. Then let’s talk about it.” Unfortunately, this issue has become such a divisive and angry one that ad hominem attacks have replaced dialogue..
final statement:
When I write about global climate issues, I do so on my own time from home. I'm cautious about having my opinion construed as representing the State of Oregon or Oregon State University, and I try to separate my analyses of global climate from my day to day work as the State Climatologist.
al_bundy
08-27-05, 09:33 AM
last night Discovery Channel said that the Earth was covered by ice twice in it's history.
forgot what caused the first warm up, but the second was caused by volcanic activity
Buy: