PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet CLIMATE SCARES & CLIMATE CHANGE, 8 May 2002
-------------------------------------------------
"And again, our primary conclusion, i.e., that atmospheric
CO2
concentration is not a major determinant of earth's temperature,
is
supported by the same fact referenced in the prior paragraph: the
fact
that the earth is currently 3°C cooler than it was during the
peak
warmth of the prior four interglacials, when the air's CO2
content was only
about 75% of what it is today."
--Sherwood B. Idso & Keith E. Idso, CO2 Science Magazine, 8
May 2002
"The 'Nature' and 'Science' research provide further
evidence that
climate models are poor tools for predicting climate change. They
cannot properly simulate the current climate. They predict
greater and
more rapid warming in the atmosphere than at the surface, yet the
opposite is happening. Moreover, they predict amplified warming
at the
poles, which are cooling instead."
--James M. Taylor, Environment & Climate News, May 2002
(1) 400,000 YEARS OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2, METHANE AND TEMPERATURE
DATA: WHAT CAN
THEY TELL US?
CO2 Science Magazine, 8 May 2002
(2) ICE SHELF COLLAPSE TRIGGERS DEBATE
Environment & Climate News, May 2002
(3) ANTARCTICA (SEA ICE)
CO2 Science Magazine, 8 May 2002
(4) OZONE HOLE CAUSES MIXED ANTARCTIC MESSAGE
New Scientist, 3 May 2002
(5) WIND THEORY MAY CLEAR UP WARMING MYSTERIES
Los Angeles Times, 3 May 2002
(6) A 1300-YEAR CLIMATIC HISTORY OF WESTERN CENTRAL ASIA
CO2 Science Magazine, 8 May 2002
(7) HALF A BILLION YEARS OF CO2 AND CLIMATE
CO2 Science Magazine, 8 May 2002
(8) THE FUTURE OF SOLAR POWER
Stephen Ashworth <sa@astronist.demon.co.uk>
==============
(1) 400,000 YEARS OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2, METHANE AND TEMPERATURE
DATA: WHAT CAN
THEY TELL US?
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 8 May 2002
http://www.co2science.org/edit/v5_edit/v5n19edit.htm
In his discussion of the Gaia Hypothesis - about which we will
say nothing -
Kirchner (2002) presents a pair of interesting graphs, the first
of which is
a plot of temperature vs. atmospheric CO2 concentration that he
derived from
400,000 years of Vostok ice core data. In contemplating this
presentation,
two important questions come to mind. What does it show? and What
does it
mean?
First, what does it show? The plot displays a fair amount
of scatter but
seems to suggest the existence of a crude linear relationship
between the
two variables, which is what Kirchner implies by drawing a
best-fit linear
regression line through the data. Alternatively, the data
may be equally
well characterized as a two-dimensional distribution enclosed by
the sides
of a piece of pie that has its apex anchored at the point defined
by the
coldest temperature and the lowest CO2 concentration of the data
set. In
fact, this characterization may well be preferred, for when the
current
temperature-CO2 state of the world is plotted, it falls far below
the linear
relationship derived by Kirchner but right on the lower side of
the piece of
pie we would place over the data (the upper side of the pie being
Kirchner's
line).
Second, what does it mean? Kirchner notes that
"despite greenhouse gas
concentrations that are unprecedented in recent earth history,
global
temperatures have not (yet) risen nearly as much as the
correlations in the
ice core records would indicate that they could." He
points out, for
example, that his representation of the ice core data suggests
that "for the
current composition of the atmosphere, current temperatures are
anomalously
cool by many degrees." How many? Kirchner's
temperature vs. CO2
relationship suggests approximately 10°C, which is significantly
more than
the maximum warming that is currently predicted by the
Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change to accompany a doubling of the air's CO2
content
(which prediction is itself believed by most people to lie
outside the realm
of reality). Our characterization of the data, on the other
hand - although
also suggesting that current temperatures are a bit on the cool
side (of the
piece of CO2-temperature pie we have baked) - indicate that
earth's current
temperature is not "anomalous."
Kirchner's second graph, a plot of temperature vs. atmospheric
methane
concentration, is also of great interest. In this case, the
relationship
described by the data is absolutely and unquestionably linear,
i.e., there
is no room for any pie at all, and it exhibits very little
scatter.
However, when it is used to compute what the temperature of
today's earth
"should be," on the basis of its current atmospheric
methane concentration,
the result is fully 40°C more than the planet's current
temperature; and
there is probably no one who would consider that result to be
realistic.
Hence, this graph too provides no basis for characterizing
earth's current
temperature as anomalous. Rather, in both the case of
methane and CO2, it
is the atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration that is
anomalous.
What is the take-home message of these observations? Since
Kirchner's
temperature vs. atmospheric methane concentration plot reveals
such a tight
coupling of temperature and methane - but the relationship
between the two
parameters is such that methane cannot possibly be the
determinant of
temperature - we conclude that temperature must be the
determinant of
atmospheric methane concentration, as long as humanity is not a
part of the
picture. For nearly all of the past 400,000 years, this
latter restriction
has applied. As our numbers and impact on the biosphere have
skyrocketed
over the past few centuries, however, we have clearly outgrown
this
relationship, causing the atmosphere's methane concentration to
rise to
levels that are far above anything experienced throughout the
entire history
of the Vostok ice core. Further supporting our view of what
causes what (in
the absence of anthropogenic influences) is the fact that earth's
temperature has clearly not responded to the
anthropogenic-induced methane
increase. In fact, earth is currently about 3°C cooler
than it was during
the peak warmth of the prior four hundred thousand years, when
the air's
methane concentration was only 40% of what it is today.
By analogy, we conclude pretty much the same thing about
temperature and
atmospheric CO2 concentration, i.e., that it is temperature
change that
elicits changes in the air's CO2 content and not vice versa,
although the
scatter in Kirchner's temperature vs. atmospheric CO2
concentration plot is
sufficient to allow for significant independent movement by both
of these
parameters. And again, our primary conclusion, i.e., that
atmospheric CO2
concentration is not a major determinant of earth's temperature,
is
supported by the same fact referenced in the prior paragraph: the
fact that
the earth is currently 3°C cooler than it was during the peak
warmth of the
prior four interglacials, when the air's CO2 content was only
about 75% of
what it is today.
Consider these two observations together. Since the time of
occurrence of
the peak temperature of the past 400,000 years, the
concentrations of the
two most powerful greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (outside of
water
vapor) - CO2 and methane - have increased by approximately a
third and
2.5-fold, respectively; yet earth's temperature has actually
dropped ... and
by a full 3°C! Clearly, the only thing we have to fear
about CO2- and
methane-induced global warming is fear itself, plus the climate
alarmists
and politicians who are trying to convince the world that black
is white,
and white black, and who are succeeding very nicely in that
endeavor.
Dr. Sherwood B. Idso
President
Dr. Keith E. Idso
Vice President
Reference
Kirchner, J.W. 2002. The Gaia Hypothesis: fact,
theory, and wishful
thinking. Climatic Change 52: 391-408.
Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
==========
(2) ICE SHELF COLLAPSE TRIGGERS DEBATE
>From Environment & Climate News, May 2002
http://www.heartland.org/environment/may02/collapse.htm
Nature, Science say Antarctic is cooling, ice shelf thickening
by James M. Taylor
In February and March, an ice shelf known as the Larsen B ice
shelf in the
Antarctic Peninsula collapsed, leading many to raise once again
the specter
of global warming.
"The disintegration of the ice shelf-1,260 square miles in
area and 650 feet
thick-was most alarming to some because of the extraordinary
rapidity of the
collapse," wrote the Washington Post on March 20. "The
shelf is believed to
have existed for as long as 12,000 years before regional
temperatures began
to rise, yet it disintegrated literally before scientists' eyes
over a
35-day period that began Jan. 31."
Extremists sound alarm
Although there is no evidence to link the event to global
warming, the New
York Times could not help raising the issue in its March 20
edition. "While
it is too soon to say whether the changes there are related to a
buildup of
the 'greenhouse' gas emissions that scientists believe are
warming the
planet, many experts said it was getting harder to find any other
explanation."
Though some scientists quoted were hesitant to link global
warming to the
collapse, they certainly didn't dispel the notion. Ted Scambos, a
glaciologist at the University of Colorado's National Snow and
Ice Center,
told the San Francisco Chronicle on March 20, "We can't say
that CO2 or the
other greenhouse gases have been dive bombing Antarctica, but we
have our
suspicions."
Michael Oppenheimer, who recently joined the Princeton University
faculty
after serving at Environmental Defense, where he was chief
scientist and
held the Barbra Streisand Chair in Environmental Studies, told
the
Washington Post, "Ascribing a temperature trend in a small
region like that
to the broader global trend is difficult. Nevertheless, the
collapse of the
ice shelf in my opinion can be partially ascribed to
human-induced climate
change."
Warming or cooling?
To its credit, the Washington Post noted Nature recently
published a study
that found the Antarctic has actually been cooling since 1966.
Another study
in Science recently found the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been
thickening
rather than thinning. (See "New studies throw cold water on
warming theory,"
Environment & Climate News, March 2002.)
Although the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed over the past 50
years, it is a
tiny part of the whole Antarctic continent. Unless one is willing
to believe
the peninsula is responding to global warming while ignoring
regional
cooling, it becomes very difficult to link the ice shelf collapse
to global
warming.
The study in Nature found the Antarctic has been cooling for some
time now,
contradicting the findings of the climate models upon which the
case for
global warming is built. Those models predict the Earth's poles
will warm
more rapidly than the rest of the Earth.
According to the study, "Climate models generally predict
amplified warming
in the polar regions, as observed in Antarctica's peninsula
region over the
second half of the 20th century." The study finds, "Our
spatial analysis of
Antarctic meteorological data demonstrates a net cooling on the
Antarctic
continent between 1966 and 2000, particularly during summer and
autumn." The
McMurdo Dry Valleys, for example, have cooled about 0.7 degrees
Celsius per
decade during this period of time.
The authors conclude, "Continental Antarctic cooling,
especially the
seasonality of cooling, poses challenges to models of climate,
and ecosystem
change."
The research into the continent's temperature record was
motivated by the
unexpected coldness of the summers, according to lead author
Peter Doran
with the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the
University of
Illinois. "Two or three years ago when we were waiting for
the big summers,
we noticed that they didn't come," Doran told the Washington
Post on January
14. "We were thinking that warm summers were the norm, and
we were saying,
'It's going to get back to normal,' but it never did."
Michael Oppenheimer, chief scientist for Environmental Defense,
isn't buying
it, however. "I'd be very careful with this," he told
the Washington Post.
"My general view has been that there's simply not enough
data to make a
broad statement about all of Antarctica."
Of course, lack of data has never stopped Oppenheimer from making
"broad"
statements about the whole Earth. In a November 2000
Environmental Defense
press release he stated, for instance, "The 1990s, likely
the hottest decade
of the past thousand years, capped decades of shrinking glaciers,
thinning
Arctic ice, intensifying rainstorms, and rising seas."
According to
Oppenheimer, that means "The world must end its dependence
on fossil fuels
that are too dirty and too expensive. Governments must take
action now."
Antarctic ice sheet thickening
The study in the January 18 issue of Science concluded that the
West
Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is thickening, rather than thinning as
was
previously thought. Earlier studies found that in the Ross Sea
Sector, "The
grounding line (the point where the ice sheet loses contact with
its bed and
begins to float) has retreated nearly 1300 km along the western
side of the
Ross Embayment," since the last glacial maximum.
This led researchers to predict that the entire WAIS would
collapse in 4,000
years, implying a sea-level rise of 12.5 to 15 centimeters per
century. This
was based on a measurement of a loss of ice mass of -20.9 +/-
13.7 gigatons
per year.
The authors of the Science study, Ian Joughin and Slawek
Tulaczyk, with the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of
Technology, note,
"The ice-discharge estimates of earlier studies relied on
relatively sparse
in situ measurements of ice-flow velocity. For some ice streams
the ...
estimates were based on only one or two velocity
measurements."
The study used satellite remote sensing to get better
measurements. Contrary
to earlier studies, the authors found "strong evidence for
ice-sheet growth
(26.8 +/- 14.9 gigatons per year)." They conclude, "The
overall positive
mass balance may signal an end to the Holocene retreat of these
ice
streams."
Conclusions
The Nature and Science research provide further evidence the
climate models
are poor tools for predicting climate change. They cannot
properly simulate
the current climate. They predict greater and more rapid warming
in the
atmosphere than at the surface, yet the opposite is happening.
Moreover,
they predict amplified warming at the poles, which are cooling
instead.
What, then, is the most likely explanation for the break-up of
the ice
sheet? As John Daly says in the commentary elsewhere on this
page, "The
Larsen break-up has been coming for years, and its demise has
long been
expected. ... It's dramatic, happens on a grand scale, but also
very, very,
natural."
==========
(3) ANTARCTICA (SEA ICE)
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 8 May 2002
http://www.co2science.org/subject/a/summaries/antarcticaseaice.htm
Watkins and Simmonds (2000) analyzed trends in a number of sea
ice
parameters of the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica,
paying
particular attention to data obtained from the Defense
Meteorological
Satellite Program Special Sensor Microwave/Imager over the period
December
1987-December 1996. They conducted this work, they say,
because "it has
been suggested that the Antarctic sea ice may show high
sensitivity to any
anthropogenic increase in temperature." Specifically,
they note that most
climate models predict that "any rise in surface temperature
would result in
a decrease in sea ice coverage." So what did they
find?
Contrary to what one would have expected if the climate alarmists
were
correct, the authors observed statistically significant increases
in sea ice
area and total sea ice extent between 1987 and 1996.
Combining their
results with earlier results for the period 1978-1987, both
parameters
showed increases over the entire 1978-1996 period. In
addition, they
determined that the 1990s experienced increases in the length of
the sea ice
season.
In a continuation of this work, Hanna (2001) published an updated
analysis
of Antarctic sea ice cover based on Special Sensor
Microwave/Imager data for
the period October 1987-September 1999, finding that the serial
sea ice data
depict "an ongoing slight but significant hemispheric
increase of 3.7(±0.3)%
in extent and 6.6(±1.5)% in area."
Yuan and Martinson (2000) also studied various aspects of the
behavior of
Antarctic sea ice extent, using data derived from brightness
temperatures
measured by the Nimbus-7 Scanning Multichannel Microwave
Radiometer as well
as the Special Sensor Microwave/Imagers. Among other
things, they
determined that the net trend in the mean Antarctic sea ice edge
over the
prior 18 years had been an equatorward expansion of 0.011 degree
of latitude
per year.
In a somewhat different context, Elderfield and Rickaby (2000)
noted that
sea ice cover in the Southern Ocean during glacial periods may
have been as
much as double the coverage of modern winter ice, suggesting that
"by
restricting communication between the ocean and atmosphere, sea
ice
expansion also provides a mechanism for reduced CO2 release by
the Southern
Ocean and lower glacial atmospheric CO2."
In considering the findings of those research papers that apply
to the last
few decades, if one were to infer anything about the planet in
terms of what
state-of-the-art climate models predict and what is known about
sea ice
behavior around Antarctica over the past few decades, one would
be tempted
to conclude that the globe has cooled over this period. Does that
mean the
generally accepted temperature history of the planet is in error?
Or does it
mean that the climate models are in error? Or does it mean that
both are in
error? The choice is yours.
References
Elderfield, H. and Rickaby, R.E.M. 2000. Oceanic Cd/P
ratio and nutrient
utilization in the glacial Southern Ocean. Nature 405:
305-310.
Hanna, E. 2001. Anomalous peak in Antarctic sea-ice
area, winter 1998,
coincident with ENSO. Geophysical Research Letters 28:
1595-1598.
Watkins, A.B. and Simmonds, I. 2000. Current trends
in Antarctic sea ice:
The 1990s impact on a short climatology. Journal of Climate
13: 4441-4451.
Yuan, X. and Martinson, D.G. 2000. Antarctic sea ice
extent variability
and its global connectivity. Journal of Climate 13:
1697-1717.
Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
=========
(4) OZONE HOLE CAUSES MIXED ANTARCTIC MESSAGE
>From New Scientist, 3 May 2002
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992249
Recent conflicting reports about whether Antarctica is warming or
cooling
can now at least be explained - it is all the fault of the ozone
hole.
Changing wind patterns triggered by the ozone hole are causing
some areas to
warm while others cool, says a new study by David Thompson of
Colorado State
University in Fort Collins.
The temperature changes are so great that they are swamping the
gradual
warming trend caused by the greenhouse effect. Thompson says that
the ozone
hole has become "the largest and most significant"
cause of climate change
on the ice continent.
The climate around Antarctica is dominated by strong westerly
winds that
swirl around a giant vortex of cold air that forms over the
continent for
much of the year. This polar vortex stretches from the ground
into the
stratosphere.
In the past 20 years, pollution has destroyed much of the ozone
layer over
Antarctica. That in turn has cooled the stratosphere by as much
as 10°C. The
cooling does not extent to ground level, but it has had the
effect of
strengthening the polar vortex and the westerly winds. This in
turn, says
Thompson, has caused the big changes in weather patterns at
ground level
that have alarmed climate scientists.
Blowing hot and cold
British scientists working in the Antarctic peninsula have
reported that
region warming by 2 or 3°C in recent decades - several times
faster than the
average global warming trend. But meanwhile other parts of the
continent,
such as the Ross Sea region in the east, have become cooler.
Until now, this patchwork has confused climate scientists, who
had expected
a general but gradual warming from the greenhouse effect. And the
protagonists on opposite sides of the debate about global warming
have
chosen the data that suits their cause.
Now Thompson's examination of trends in ozone, the polar vortex,
wind and
temperatures over the past 30 years implicates the ozone layer,
and not
global warming, for most of the climate change in Antarctica.
Howard Roscoe, at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge,
says: "I agree
it is probable the ozone is partially implicated." But he
adds that much of
the warming at Faraday, the former British station on the
Antarctic
peninsula, "occurred between 1950 and 1969 - before the
ozone hole started".
The ozone hole and global warming are different phenomenon,
caused by
largely different pollutants. Massive reductions in emissions of
the
chemicals that eat the ozone layer are predicted to heal the hole
after
about 2020. But global warming is far from under control and it
seems likely
that in the long run, all of Antarctica can expect to get hotter.
Journal reference: Science (vol 296, p 895)
Fred Pearce
Copyright 2002, New Scientist
===========
(5) WIND THEORY MAY CLEAR UP WARMING MYSTERIES
>From Los Angeles Times, 3 May 2002
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-000031472may03.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dnation
By USHA LEE McFARLING, TIMES STAFF WRITER
It is one of the biggest climate mysteries today: If the Earth is
getting
warmer, why are vast parts of Antarctica getting colder?
For the last decade, the behavior of Antarctica has become
increasingly
inexplicable. And the inability of scientists to figure out what
they were
seeing has been one of the most troubling gaps in explanations
for why the
Earth seems to be warming--one repeatedly pointed to by global
warming
skeptics.
Now a team of researchers thinks it has an answer to the
Antarctic puzzle.
The explanation involves the effect of wind patterns far above
the Earth's
surface as well as the hole in the atmosphere's ozone layer that
opens over
Antarctica for several months each year. If correct, the
explanation would
close a big gap in theories about global warming. But the
explanation also
suggests that up to half the warming may be caused by changes in
the wind
patterns of the stratosphere, implying that human activity, while
a major
factor, is not the direct cause of as much of the warming as many
experts
and activists have thought.
The mystery of Antarctica is that one part of the continent has
warmed
dramatically even as the rest of the continent has gotten colder.
Along the slender Antarctic peninsula, which juts toward South
America, ice
shelves the size of Delaware and Connecticut have thinned,
collapsed and
broken off, disintegrating into bergs.
But in Antarctica's frozen interior, the temperature has dropped
and
glaciers have grown. Instead of retreating, sea ice on the
eastern side of
the continent has thickened.
"There's been lots of thinking on what is causing the
warming, but the
cooling has remained a mystery," said David W.J. Thompson,
an atmospheric
scientist at Colorado State University.
Thompson studies the swirling patterns of wind in the
stratosphere, the
high, thin part of the planet's atmosphere six miles overhead.
For decades, scientists thought nothing much happened in this
wispy realm to
directly affect the Earth's weather, that the winds there merely
responded
to atmospheric turbulence closer to the Earth's surface.
Work by a number of atmospheric scientists in recent years,
though, suggests
that the tail may wag the dog: The lightweight stratosphere
doesn't merely
respond to the thicker lower atmosphere; instead, it shapes the
weather far
below.
Last year, Thompson and John M. Wallace of the University of
Washington
suggested in a paper in the journal Science that a stratospheric
pattern
that swirls an enormous doughnut of wind above southern Alaska
and
north-central Europe plays a central role in determining the
climate
throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
A weather pattern that is associated with those high-altitude
winds is
called the Northern Annular Mode, and it seesaws between two
phases.
In one phase, air pressures are high over the polar cap and
high-altitude
winds are weak.
When this pattern is in effect, cold Arctic air masses flow
downward and
cool more temperate parts of North America and Europe.
In the other phase, high-altitude winds stay strong, holding cold
northern
air in and steering ocean storms north.
This means that North America and Europe stay much warmer than
normal.
For the last few decades, the Northern Annular Mode has largely
stayed
locked in the second phase. This has allowed warmer weather to
sweep out
over the planet's northern reaches.
That helps explain why parts of the Arctic have seen such
dramatic warming
in this time period and why winters throughout North America and
Eurasia
have generally been less bitter.
The atmospheric pattern could be responsible for about a third of
the
warming throughout the Northern Hemisphere in the last three
decades.
That warming is so dramatic that many scientists think that
year-round sea
ice in the Arctic could disappear within 50 years.
"Any perception that winters have been less wintry is as
much due to changes
in atmospheric circulation than to increases in global mean
temperature,"
Thompson said.
"The big question is, was this also happening in the
South?" said Thompson.
He and Susan Solomon, an expert on Antarctic ozone depletion with
the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, decided to take
a look.
They paid particular attention to a major disruption in the
southern
stratosphere--the ozone hole.
The analysis was more difficult for the Southern Hemisphere:
Temperature
records in the uninhabited region are rare and sparse. The team,
Wallace
said, "really made use of just about all the data there
is."
As in the Northern Hemisphere, the winds high in the stratosphere
over
Antarctica also are organized in predictable patterns and have an
associated
weather pattern called the Southern Annular Mode. It, like its
northern
counterpart, has two variations.
For a great deal of the last few decades, the Southern Annular
Mode has
followed a pattern in which winds are strong and cold air remains
trapped in
polar regions. That pattern helps explain the Antarctic puzzle:
Temperatures
at the South Pole and in Antarctica's interior remain colder than
they
otherwise would be while temperatures at the edge of the
continent rise.
The ozone hole, which forms high over Antarctica in December,
plays an
additional role. Without the insulating layer of ozone, the
stratosphere
gets very cold and polar stratospheric winds tend to speed up.
Thompson and Solomon found that in the months after the ozone
hole appeared,
the high-altitude winds were strongest and the weather in those
parts of
Antarctica known to be cooling were coldest.
Not all scientists are convinced that the stratosphere--an
atmospheric
lightweight--plays such a powerful role or that the new study
proves that
the changes in the stratosphere cause changes at the surface and
not vice
versa.
"The evidence is there that there is indeed an effect.
There's just some
question over what the magnitude is," said James Hurrell, an
atmospheric
scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in
Boulder, Colo.,
whose studies focus on the role that the oceans play in
controlling global
climate.
While the new findings explain most of the cooling seen in parts
of
Antarctica, the atmospheric circulation can account for only
about half of
the warming seen elsewhere on the continent, suggesting that
other factors,
including human-induced global warming, may be involved.
Humans' use of chemicals has ripped apart the protective ozone
layer. In
addition, greenhouse gases may help create the stratospheric
conditions that
Thompson and Solomon described.
The same gases that warm the surface of the planet can make the
stratosphere
cooler by reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. Cooling the
stratosphere
may lead to stronger wind patterns and change the way that the
Northern and
Southern Annular Modes work. If that is the case, greenhouse
gases may
hijack these natural patterns and intensify them. The new
findings on the
planet's southern edge add some credence to that idea.
"We're seeing similar trends in both hemispheres, which adds
weight to the
argument we're seeing changes that are truly global, fundamental
changes in
the structure of the atmosphere that could be
human-induced," Wallace of the
University of Washington said.
Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times
===========
(6) A 1300-YEAR CLIMATIC HISTORY OF WESTERN CENTRAL ASIA
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 8 May 2002
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2002/v5n19c1.htm
Reference
Esper, J., Schweingruber, F.H. and Winiger, M. 2002.
1300 years of
climatic history for Western Central Asia inferred from
tree-rings. The
Holocene 12: 267-277.
What was done
The authors employed more than 200,000 ring-width measurements
from 384
trees obtained from 20 individual sites ranging from the lower to
upper
timberline in the Northwest Karakorum of Pakistan (35-37°N,
74-76°E) and the
Southern Tien Shan of Kirghizia (40°10'N, 72°35'E) to
reconstruct regional
patterns of climatic variations in Western Central Asia since AD
618, noting
that these high-elevation sites are "exceptionally sensitive
to climatic
variations" and that "conspicuous interactions exist
between [their]
ecosystems and climate."
What was learned
The long ring-width record the authors developed provides an
important
perspective on the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age.
The authors
note, for example, that early in the seventh century the Medieval
Warm
Period was already firmly established and growing even
warmer. Between AD
900 and 1000 tree growth was exceptionally rapid, at rates that
they say
"cannot be observed during any other period of the last
millennium."
Between AD 1000 and 1200, however, growing conditions
deteriorated; and at
about AD 1500, minimum tree ring-widths were reached that
persisted well
into the seventeenth century. Towards the end of the
twentieth century,
ring-widths increased once again; but the authors report that
"the
twentieth-century trend does not approach the AD 1000
maximum." In fact,
there is almost no comparison between the two periods, with the
Medieval
Warm Period being far more conducive to good tree growth than the
Modern
Warm Period. As the authors describe the situation,
"growing conditions in
the twentieth century exceed the long-term average, but the
amplitude of
this trend is not comparable to the conditions around AD
1000."
What it means
Contrary to the climate-alarmist claim that the last decade of
the 20th
century was the warmest of the past millennium, it is readily
evident from
the authors' data that the great bulk of the first century of the
past
millennium in Western Central Asia was much warmer than any part
of its last
century. And that wasn't even the warmest period of the past 1300
years.
"The warmest decades since AD 618 appear between AD 800 and
1000," say the
authors. Hence, it can be appreciated that the
"unprecedented warming of the
past century," as climate alarmists like to describe it,
does not even come
close to meriting that appellation, especially in Western Central
Asia. In
fact, in this region of the world, the warming of the past two
centuries is
pretty pathetic, giving absolutely no hint of any possible
anthropogenic
influence.
Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
============
(7) HALF A BILLION YEARS OF CO2 AND CLIMATE
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 8 May 2002
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2002/v5n19c2.htm
Reference
Rothman, D.H. 2002. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels
for the last 500
million years. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences USA 99:
4167-4171.
What was done
Based on considerations related to the chemical weathering of
rocks,
volcanic and metamorphic degassing, and the burial of organic
carbon, along
with considerations related to the isotopic content of organic
carbon and
strontium in marine sedimentary rocks, the author derived a
500-million-year
history of the air's CO2 content.
What was learned
Over the bulk of the record, earth's atmospheric CO2
concentration
fluctuates between values that are two to four times greater than
that of
today at a dominant period on the order of 100 million
years. For the last
175 million years, however, there has been a rather steady
long-term decline
in the air's CO2 content.
What it means
The author states that it is "interesting to ask what, if
any,
correspondence exists between ancient climate and the [newly
derived CO2]
estimate." Indeed, it is *very* interesting to ask
that question; for the
political future of the entire world rests on the validity or
invalidity of
the climate-alarmist supposition that changes in the air's CO2
content are
major determinants of changes in climate. So what do the
new results show?
Rothman reports that the CO2 history he derived "exhibits no
systematic
correspondence with the geologic record of climatic variations at
tectonic
time scales." In another place he writes that
"comparison with the geologic
record of climatic variations reveals no obvious
correspondence." And in
yet another place he says that although the most recent cool
period
corresponds to the relatively low CO2 levels of the present,
"no
correspondence between atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate
is evident
in the remainder of the record."
If the truth be told, however, a simple visual examination of the
author's
plot of CO2 and climate vs. time clearly indicates that the three
most
striking peaks in the atmospheric CO2 record occur either totally
or
partially within periods of time when earth's climate was
relatively cool.
Hence, not only is there no proof for the climate-alarmist
contention that
higher CO2 concentrations tend to warm the planet, there is
evidence in this
study to suggest that just the opposite may be true.
Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(8) THE FUTURE OF SOLAR POWER
>From Stephen Ashworth <sa@astronist.demon.co.uk>
Dear Dr Peiser,
In her article "RENEWABLE REALITIES", Sallie Baliunas
described solar power,
along with wind power, as having an enormous environmental
footprint, and
being a dilute and intermittent source (item (2) in CCNet
CLIMATE, 24 April
2002).
Now Professor Howard C. Hayden, "SOLAR'S CLOUDY
FUTURE", has weighed in with
a sweeping dismissal of the future prospects of solar power (item
(8) in
CCNet CLIMATE, 1 May 2002).
They both seriously understate the case for solar power.
Solar power can be as concentrated as one likes. At a distance of
0.1
astronomical units from the Sun, for example (a quarter of the
distance of
the planet Mercury), it is 100 times more intense than at the top
of the
Earth's atmosphere, therefore about 130 kW per square
metre. A one GW
collecting surface would be only about 100 metres square, if my
arithmetic
is correct.
I calculate that solar power, if harvested efficiently, is
sufficient to
accommodate growth in the energy budget of human civilisation to
a level ten
trillion times greater than that of today, and then maintain it
at that
level for billions of years into the future (if required).
This would allow energy growth, for example, at the rate of 5 per
cent per
annum for the next 600 years, or at 1 per cent per annum for 3000
years
(excluding any contribution from nuclear or other sources).
Of course it is possible to harvest a minuscule amount of solar
energy from
the Earth's surface, as in the example of Green Mountain Energy's
new
Houston plant, given by Professor Hayden. But since only a half
of a
billionth of the total solar energy generated is actually
incident on the
Earth, and only a small fraction of that can in practice be
collected at the
surface, such *terrestrial*-solar power cannot possibly be
considered an
important part of solar power in general.
The fact that solar power is not yet economically competitive
with oil, gas
and so on should not blind us to the fact that industrial
civilisation has
at its disposal a reliable, concentrated, environmentally
friendly and
practically inexhaustible power source which can be harvested
with
present-day technology and transported anywhere in the solar
system by
microwaves or in chemical form.
Yours sincerely,
Stephen Ashworth
Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society
Oxford, UK
3 May 2002
--------------------------------------------------------------------
CCNet is a scholarly electronic network. To
subscribe/unsubscribe, please
contact the moderator Benny J Peiser < b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk
>. Information
circulated on this network is for scholarly and educational use
only. The
attached information may not be copied or reproduced for
any other purposes without prior permission of the copyright
holders. The
fully indexed archive of the CCNet, from February 1997 on, can be
found at
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions,
beliefs and viewpoints expressed in the articles and texts and in
other
CCNet contributions do not necessarily reflect the opinions,
beliefs and
viewpoints of the moderator of this network.