PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet CLIMATE SCARES & CLIMATE CHANGE - 16 May 2001
----------------------------------------------------
"The Russian authorities are sending a ship to try to rescue
some of
the hundreds of thousands of baby seals starving to death in the
country's remote White Sea. [...] The seals are trapped on ice
floes in
the White Sea, after unusually strong winds stopped them drifting
to
their normal feeding grounds in the Barents Sea. [...] A similar
disaster
occurred in 1966, when up to 300,000 baby seals died - around 60%
of the
total number born that year. An unusually harsh winter in Russia
has
already caused problems for other wildlife. Endangered Siberian
tigers
in Russia's far east have been struggling to survive after
plummeting
temperatures wiped out large numbers of their usual prey, which
include
reindeer and wild boar."
--BBC Online News, 10 May 2001
"Warmer weather on Sunday threw a lifeline to hundreds of
thousands
of starving seals stranded on ice floes in Russia's White Sea,
increasing their chances of escaping to areas with more food. A
scientist
who flew over vast stretches of melting ice with a Reuters
television
crew said he was happy to see that grown-up seals had not
abandoned their
babies and had taught them to feed on whatever the Arctic waters
had on
offer."
--Nikolai Pavlov, ABC News, 14 May 2001
"Claims that 200,000 seal pups were trapped on ice floes in
Russia's
White Sea and would slowly starve to death were false, say
international
wildlife experts. No seals were ever in any danger, says Masha
Vorontsova, director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare
in
Moscow, who flew over the White Sea ice floes last Thursday.
"I saw only
tens of seals on the floes. The situation is normal," she
told New
Scientist. "The current situation is there is no disaster at
all and
there never was."
--Emma Young, New Scientist, 15 May 2001
(1) BBC: UNUSUALLY HARSH WINTER THREATENS RUSSIAN WILDLIFE
BBC Online News, 10 May 2001
(2) ABC: TRAPPED SEALS FACE BETTER PROSPECTS DUE TO WARMER
WEATHER
ABC News, 14 May 2001
(3) NEW SCIENTIST: RUSSIAN WILD LIFE ALARM WAS A HOAX
New Scientist, 15 May 2001
(4) GLOBAL WARMING HELPS ARCTIC ANIMALS
BBC Online News, 10 May 2001
(5) A 200-YEAR RECORD OF EUROPEAN AIR PRESSURE
CO2 Science Magazine, 16 May 2001
(6) HAS THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT INCREASED IN RECENT YEARS?
CO2 Science Magazine, 16 May 2001
(7) MEDIA'S ONE-SIDED GLOBAL WARMING REPORTING
Media Research Center, 10 May 2001
(8) EXPERTS ARGUE OVER U.N. REPORT ON RISING SEA LEVEL
Yahoo! News, 14 May 2001
(9) GLOBAL WARMING & MOONSHINE
The Greening Earth Society, 12 May 2001
(10) WHAT'S HOT: FORCING THE ISSUE
World Climate Report, 14 May 2001
(11) STALAGMITE TRIPLES RADIOCARBON DATING EFFECTIVENESS
UniSci, 14 May 2001
(12) COMMENTARY OF THE WEEK: THE CO2-CLIMATE DEBATE - WHO HOLDS
THE MORAL
HIGH GROUND?
CO2 Science Magazine, 16 May 2001
(13) UPSETTING THE SCOTS AND IRISH
Duncan Steel <D.I.Steel@salford.ac.uk>
=================
(1) BBC: UNUSUALLY HARSH WINTER THREATENS RUSSIAN WILDLIFE
From the BBC Online News, 10 May 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1323000/1323977.stm
Russian ship to rescue baby seals
The Russian authorities are sending a ship to try to rescue some
of the
hundreds of thousands of baby seals starving to death in the
country's
remote White Sea.
A spokesman for the crew said the vessel, weighing 20,000 tonnes,
would
transfer the pups to the neighbouring Barents Sea, where they
would have
more food.
The seals are trapped on ice floes in the White Sea, after
unusually strong
winds stopped them drifting to their normal feeding grounds in
the Barents
Sea.
A Russian scientist warned on Tuesday that almost 200,000 baby
seals were
doomed because of freak weather.
It is not clear how many seals the ship can carry, or how many
trips it will
make. The Russian emergency ministry said it would definitely
become
involved in the rescue operation.
"Only the adult seals can get themselves out on their own.
The pups, and
there are approximately 200,000 of them, need help," the
Russian Emergency
Minister, Sergey Shoygu, said.
Strong winds
The seals, which swim south to the White Sea to breed, normally
drift back
north on ice floes to the richer feeding grounds of the Barents
Sea.
But this year, the area has been hit by strong north-easterly
winds, halting
the normal drift patterns.
Vladimir Potelov, of the Polar Institute of Fish and
Oceanography, said it
would be impossible to evacuate or feed all the cubs, but it
might be
possible to save some.
"It is possible to catch those which are searching for food
on the shore,
transport them to inland waterways and then let them out into the
southern
part of the Barents Sea," he said.
A similar disaster occurred in 1966, when up to 300,000 baby
seals died -
around 60% of the total number born that year.
An unusually harsh winter in Russia has already caused problems
for other
wildlife.
Endangered Siberian tigers in Russia's far east have been
struggling to
survive after plummeting temperatures wiped out large numbers of
their usual
prey, which include reindeer and wild boar.
Copyright 2001, BBC
===============
(2) ABC: TRAPPED SEALS FACE BETTER PROSPECTS DUE TO WARMER
WEATHER
From ABC News, 14 May 2001
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/seals010514.html
Trapped Seals Face Better Prospects
Warm Weather, Adult Seals Could Help Save Seal Pups
By Nikolai Pavlov
OVER THE WHITE SEA, Russia, May 14 - Warmer weather on Sunday
threw a
lifeline to hundreds of thousands of starving seals stranded on
ice floes in
Russia's White Sea, increasing their chances of escaping to areas
with more
food.
A scientist who flew over vast stretches of melting ice with a
Reuters
television crew said he was happy to see that grown-up seals had
not
abandoned their babies and had taught them to feed on whatever
the Arctic
waters had on offer.
"Maybe a few of them will die but most of those we have seen
today will most
probably survive," Vladimir Potelov, head of the sea mammals
laboratory of
the Russian Polar Maritime Research Institute, said.
As the helicopter zoomed down on ice floes, all the seals
scurried into the
water in a clumsy stampede which Potelov said showed they were
fit and
sticking together.
"I have not once seen grown-ups scuttle away and leave the
young ones
behind. It is very encouraging," Potelov said.
FULL STORY at
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/seals010514.html
===========
(3) NEW SCIENTIST: RUSSIAN WILD LIFE ALARM WAS A HOAX
From New Scientist, 15 May 2001
http://www.newscientist.co.uk/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999737
Claims that 200,000 seal pups were trapped on ice floes in
Russia's White
Sea and would slowly starve to death were false, say
international wildlife
experts.
No seals were ever in any danger, says Masha Vorontsova, director
of the
International Fund for Animal Welfare in Moscow, who flew over
the White Sea
ice floes last Thursday.
"I saw only tens of seals on the floes. The situation is
normal," she told
New Scientist. "The current situation is there is no
disaster at all and
there never was."
At an emergency meeting held in St Petersberg on Monday, seal and
fishery
experts discussed their own aerial observations and satellite
images of the
area.
Peter Prokosch, director of the World Wide Fund for Nature's
Arctic
Programme, in Norway, says: "It was all a bluff. The local
fishery institute
gave out information that the seals were trapped and starving
before they
had even made a survey. It was nothing."
A Russian rescue mission to 'save' the seals was abandoned on
Saturday,
after the first reports that the claims may have been wrong, says
Vorontsova.
Missing seals
Vladimir Potelev of the SevPINRO Marine Research Institute in
Arkhangelsk
claimed early last week that hundreds of thousands of harp seals
were
trapped by freak winds and would die slowly of starvation. The
winds were
preventing the ice floes carrying the seals to their feeding
grounds in the
Barents Sea, he said.
But a survey by scientists at the PINRO headquarters in Murmansk
on Friday
11 May found very few seals in the area, according to
Vorontosova. The
situation is "very embarrassing" for all Russian marine
institutes, adds
Prokosch.
It is unclear why SevPINRO made the initial announcement and New
Scientist
has been unable to contact the institute or PINRO.
Vorontsova says the institute's intention could have been to
provide a
reason to continue the annual seal hunt. There have been recent
moves in the
Russian parliament to reduce the hunt. IFAW campaigns against
seal hunting
all over the world.
"It is true that after the announcement was made, the
fishery ministry
announced it should be possible to kill more seals as they were
all going to
die anyway," Prokosch told New Scientist.
Unlimited hunt
On 7 May, SevPINRO issued instructions about what should be done
as a result
of the "emergency", says Vorontsova. The two-page
document, which was
circulated around the hunters and local population of the White
Sea coast,
recommended that an unlimited seal hunt should be allowed,
Vorontsova
claims. It also included instructions on how to dry the seal
pelts and
process the meat, she says.
Russian seal hunters slaughter about 40,000 young seal pups and
about
100,000 older seals every year for their pelts and oil, says
IFAW. The
hunting of young "white coats" is illegal everywhere
else in the world. On
19 April, the Russian parliament's environmental committee met in
Moscow to
discuss banning the hunt of these baby seals.
SevPINRO receives funding for predicting the number of seals
available to
hunt each year, says Vorontsova, and any reduction in the annual
hunt may
mean less funding for the institute.
She adds that it is probable that the institute did not expect to
receive
such large scale worldwide media attention following the
announcement.
Correspondence about this story should be directed to
latestnews@newscientist.com
1500 GMT, 15 May 2001
Emma Young
==============
(4) GLOBAL WARMING HELPS ARCTIC ANIMALS
From the BBC Online News, 10 May 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1324000/1324416.stm
Polar bears could be benefiting from global warming
By the BBC's Richard Lister in the Alaskan Arctic
Research in the American Arctic has revealed that the polar bear
and bowhead
whale populations are booming after decades of decline, and part
of the
reason for that may be global warming.
Although the long-term predictions suggest many Arctic species
could be
jeopardised by any continued rise in temperatures, scientists
think that at
the moment some animal populations may be benefiting from a
slightly warmer
climate.
In the Arctic desert of Northern Alaska, a tiny monitoring
station is
tracking the polar climate.
Research over three decades shows the amount of carbon dioxide
and other
greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere has steadily increased.
Temperatures
have also risen by a tenth of one degree every year since 1977.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1324000/1324416.stm
============
(5) A 200-YEAR RECORD OF EUROPEAN AIR PRESSURE
From CO2 Science Magazine, 16 May 2001
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n20c1.htm
Reference
Slonosky, V.C., Jones, P.D. and Davies, T.D. 2000.
Variability of the
surface atmospheric circulation over Europe, 1774-1995.
International
Journal of Climatology 20: 1875-1897.
What was done
Temperature, precipitation and other climate variables are
largely
controlled by patterns of atmospheric circulation, especially in
the
mid-latitudes. Thus, decadal to centennial changes in atmospheric
circulation or pressure may signify changes in global or regional
climate.
With these facts in mind, Slonosky et al. analyze atmospheric
surface
pressure data from 51 stations located throughout Europe and the
eastern
North Atlantic over the past 200+ years.
What was learned
According to the authors, atmospheric circulation over Europe was
found to
be "considerably more variable, with more extreme values in
the late 18th
and early 19th centuries than in the 20th century."
Furthermore, the authors
note that the recent positive trend in the North Atlantic
Oscillation (NAO)
reported in other papers was "not as evident [in Europe] in
the context of
the past 200 years" nor does it appear "unusual."
What it means
As the earth has recovered from the global chill of the Little
Ice Age, the
variability of atmospheric circulation - and, hence, weather -
has lessened,
which finding is in direct contrast to climate alarmist
predictions of
increasing weather extremes due to global warming. Also, climate
alarmists
have seized upon the recent positive trend in the NAO as proof of
CO2-induced global climate change. However, with a longer data
set, such as
the one provided here, there is nothing unprecedented about the
NAO's recent
positive trend. It is nothing more nor less than a manifestation
of natural
climate variability.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
=============
(6) HAS THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT INCREASED IN RECENT YEARS?
From CO2 Science Magazine, 16 May 2001
http://www.co2science.org/subject/g/summaries/greenhouseeffect.htm
The mechanism by which carbon dioxide traps heat in the
atmosphere is
commonly referred to as the "greenhouse effect." Stated
very simply, CO2 is
nearly transparent to the solar radiation emitted from the sun,
but largely
opaque (in certain wavelengths) to the thermal radiation emitted
by the
earth. Hence, it allows most of the incoming solar radiation from
the sun to
pass unimpeded through the atmosphere and warm the earth's
surface; but when
the earth's surface reradiates energy back to space, a
significant portion
of this thermal radiation is absorbed and reradiated by the
atmosphere's CO2
molecules back to the earth's surface, incrementally warming the
planet.
Without this effect of water vapor (which is responsible for the
lion's
share of the warming), CO2, and other radiatively-active trace
gases in the
air, the planet's average temperature would be about 34°C cooler
than it is
presently.
So has the greenhouse effect increased in recent years as the
air's carbon
dioxide concentration has risen? In an attempt to answer this
question,
Harries et al. (2001) analyzed the difference between the spectra
of
outgoing longwave radiation obtained by two orbiting spacecraft
that looked
down upon the earth at periods of time separated by a span of 27
years. The
data utilized were obtained over a specific area in the central
Pacific
(10°N-10°S, 130°W-180°W) and a "near-global" area
of the planet (60°N-60°S).
The data were further constrained by masking out land/island
areas and areas
believed to contain clouds.
The results of their analysis showed a number of differences in
the
land-masked and cloud-cleared data, which the authors attributed
to changes
in atmospheric concentrations of CH4, CO2, O3, CFC-11 and CFC-12
that
occurred over the 27-year period separating the times of their
two sets of
measurements. Hence, they concluded their results provided
"direct
experimental evidence for a significant increase in the earth's
greenhouse
effect" over the 27-year time interval. Such a conclusion,
however, is
somewhat misleading, for it does not provide direct experimental
evidence
for a significant increase in earth's total greenhouse effect. It
does so
only for the cloud-free part of the atmosphere located over a
portion of the
planet's oceans. Furthermore, research that has been conducted on
the cloudy
portion of the atmosphere over the oceans has revealed the
presence of a
highly negative feedback phenomenon that is capable of totally
overpowering
any temperature increase forced by the rise in greenhouse gases
(Lindzen et
al., 2001).
Unfortunately, the work of Harries et al. tells us nothing about
earth's
climatic response to the inferred increase in radiative forcing,
which is
what the climate change debate is all about, i.e., trying to
evaluate the
competing effectiveness of various positive and negative
feedbacks that come
into play when there is a small change in the radiative
properties of the
cloudless atmosphere. In fact, the authors' finding is so
rudimentary as to
be essentially meaningless. Assuming, for example, that
their handling of
their data is correct - and this is a huge assumption they spend
over half
their paper discussing - they have simply verified the definition
of the
greenhouse effect! Hence, the debate continues.
References
Harries, J.E., Brindley, H.E., Sagoo, P.J. and Bantges,
R.J. 2001.
Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing
longwave
radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997. Nature
410: 355-357.
Lindzen, R.S., Chou, M.-D. and Hou, A.Y. 2001. Does
the earth have an
adaptive infrared iris? Bulletin of the American
Meteorological Society 82:
417-432.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
================
(7) MEDIA'S ONE-SIDED GLOBAL WARMING REPORTING
From Media Research Center, 10 May 2001
http://www.mrc.org/news/reality/2001/Fax20010510.html
For Immediate Release: Kate Wright (703) 683-5004 - Thursday, May
10, 2001 -
Vol. 5, No. 15
Study: ABC, CBS and NBC Never Mentioned That Thousands of
Scientists
Disagree With Doomsayers
TV's One-Sided Global Warming Nonsense
ABC, CBS and NBC are so committed to the idea that human-caused
global
warming will be a disaster for the planet, they completely
excluded all
other points of view from their evening newscasts this year,
according to a
new study by the MRC's Free Market Project.
Out of 51 global warming stories shown between January 20 and
April 22, only
CNN and the Fox News Channel mentioned experts' lack of consensus
- and
CNN's nod toward balance was merely a brief recitation of a
statement by
President Bush about "the incomplete state of scientific
knowledge." In
contrast, FNC's David Shuster showed climate scientist Richard
Lindzen, who
argued that a recent U.N. paper on global warming was
exaggerated. "It came
from having scenarios with horrific and unimaginable emissions,
and putting
them in the most sensitive model," Lindzen explained,
offering FNC viewers
the sort of hard-news insight the other networks never bothered
to find.
One textbook example of bias: On March 29, CBS's Mark Phillips
packed a
report with critics of Bush's decision not to implement the 1997
Kyoto
treaty, a deal which would have forced the U.S. to cut industrial
emissions
to 30 percent below where they are today, a huge economic
sacrifice.
"Around the world, anger runs as deep as the flood waters
being blamed on
the global warming the Kyoto treaty was supposed to fight,"
Phillips
melodramatically began. "President Bush says he's putting
American economic
interests first in rejecting Kyoto, and in Britain, where they're
having
their wettest winter ever, they sadly agree." CBS then
showed the liberal
Labor government's environmental minister lecturing the United
States about
"short-termism" and "isolationism."
"And that was the polite response," continued Phillips.
"Others point to
severe weather conditions around the planet: flooding for the
second
consecutive year in Mozambique; drought and famine in the Sudan.
And, they
say, the U.S. is substantially to blame. With only about four
percent of the
world' s population, the United States famously produces about 25
percent of
the world's harmful green-house gas pollution....Kyoto may have
been an
imperfect treaty," Phillips groused, "but in an
imperfect world, it was the
only global warming treaty we had."
By suppressing other points of view, ABC, CBS and NBC made Bush's
anti-Kyoto
ruling seem irresponsible and short-sighted. Environmentalists
were granted
most-favored status, quoted 20 times compared with only three
appearances by
spokesmen for free market groups such as the Competitive
Enterprise
Institute.
If environmentalists' gloomy global warming predictions are
exaggerated or
wrong, then the networks have been pushing the wrong side of the
story. Dr.
Sallie Baliunas of Harvard's Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
recently
told Tech Central Station's James Glassman that while the Earth
is about 1°F
warmer than it was a century ago, it was much warmer a few
hundred years
ago, long before the smokestack was invented. She told Glassman
that claims
of catastrophic human-induced warming "are exaggerated.
There is maybe some
human-made warming, but it's going to be so small that it's going
to be lost
in the natural variability."
But ABC, CBS and NBC shamelessly shut out the views of authentic
experts
such as Lindzen and Baliunas in favor of the hyped claims of
professional
environmentalists. That's not journalism, that's liberal [sic]
activism. --
Rich Noyes
================
(8) EXPERTS ARGUE OVER U.N. REPORT ON RISING SEA LEVEL
From Yahoo! News, 14 May 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010514/sc/environment_climate_un_dc_2.html
By Eva Sohlman
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Rising sea levels may not be connected to
global
warming and a U.N. report making the link is simplistic, a world
authority
on sea changes said Monday.
Rising sea levels may instead be caused by factors including
solar radiation
and the rotation of the earth, according to an association of
experts on
sea, climate and land change.
"The connection between heat and rising sea levels is not as
simple as the
IPCC (U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
claims," Nils-Emil
Morner of the International Association of Quarternary Research
(INQUA) told
Reuters.
A growing number of scientists believe greenhouse gas emissions,
such as
carbon dioxide, trap heat in the atmosphere, push up
temperatures, melt
glaciers and so raise sea levels. The changes may also bring
storms, floods
and droughts.
But Morner, professor of geology at Sweden's Stockholm University
and
president of INQUA's commission on sea level changes and coastal
evolution,
said the connection between sea levels and temperature increase
had not yet
been established.
"Just because temperatures are rising does not necessarily
mean sea levels
will rise," he added.
Morner said the average temperature during the mid-1200s was one
degree
Celsius warmer than present temperatures and the sea level had
remained
unchanged.
But Jonathan Gregory, doctor of physics at Britain's Hadley
climate center,
said it was only in the mid-1900s that temperatures could be
measured
properly and previous data were unreliable.
EXTREME CENTURY SUGGESTS LINK
Gregory, who edited the chapter on sea changes of the U.N.
report, said the
link between sea levels and temperature rises could not be
dismissed.
"The sea level rise in the last 100 years was about 10 times
faster compared
with the average growth over the last 3,000 years," he said.
The fact the IPCC had concluded that warming in the northern
hemisphere in
the 21st century is likely to be the greatest in the last 1,000
years added
weight to claims of a link between sea and temperature movements,
he added.
The IPCC report is the work of 2,500 of the world's top climate
scientists
and predicts sea levels will rise about 0.08-0.98 meters between
1990 and
2100.
But Morner said calculations based entirely on field studies
showed a
maximum rise of 0.11 meters in the same period.
The average temperature is expected to increase by 1.5-6.0
degrees Celsius
in the same period, according to the report.
Morner also cast doubt on concerns that low-lying island states
such as the
Maldives and the Federated States of Micronesia might be flooded
out because
of rising sea levels caused by global warming.
He said an INQUA study showed sea levels had fallen in the
Maldives in the
past 30 years.
But Gregory said the movements of sea levels differed around the
world. "In
a short time levels may have sunk but our conclusion is that sea
levels rose
10-20 centimeters in the 20th century," he said.
Copyright 2001, Reuters
===========
(9) GLOBAL WARMING & MOONSHINE
From The Greening Earth Society, 12 May 2001
http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/climate/v6n17/feature.htm
Ideas have consequences, and bad ones produce tragedies.
Certainly one of
the worst ideas in the sad history of the global warming issue
was the U.N.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's recent, unqualified
statement
that temperatures might rise as much as an alarming 5.8°C in the
next 100
years.
Actually, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
made 245
separate forecasts, and that was the hottest one. But it declined
to say
which ones, if any, were more likely than others. At the low end,
it
forecast 1.4°C, an amount too small to stop and probably
beneficial because
it occurs mostly in the cold air of winter. The IPCC offered no
probability
for that one, either, even though a passel of very diverse
scientists have
demonstrated that this low figure is the most likely number that
results
from adjusting the various climate models using real, observed
temperatures.
Stanford University's Steve Schneider is now worried. He's
worried that the
press is only hitting upon that very hot forecast, and he's
worried that the
IPCC's lack of assigned probabilities makes this one seem just as
likely as
any of the 244 others (which itself would reduce it to very low
order of
probability, 1 in 245, or 0.4 percent). What Schneider is really
worried
about is himself and history - because he is one of the people
who started
this mess to begin with, and the perpetrators (at least in
Schneider's case)
are now being associated with this one particular gloom-and-doom
forecast,
rather than other, more modest ones.
To his credit, Schneider argued before the very IPCC that
produced that
5.8°C whopper that it had better assign a probability of its
occurrence
relative to all the other 244 forecasts. They turned him down.
That's
because the U.N. knew the press, uninformed about the low order
of
probability, would seize upon the big number, which is what the
IPCC wanted.
Were the U.N. interested in science, it would have behaved in a
more
scientific (i.e., quantitative) fashion.
The need for probabilities is what prompted Schneider's most
interesting
article in the May 3 issue of Nature. He took a sample of the
IPCC forecasts
(which the U.N. calls "storylines" to avoid
responsibility) and found that a
considerable majority-about three-quarters-actually predict a
warming that
falls in the lower half of the overall range of 1.4°C to 5.8°C.
That range
allows the reader to make a rough adjustment for the likelihood
of the
highest scenario by cutting its random probability in half. While
virtually
100 percent of recent news stories highlight the big warming, its
probability of actually occurring is now down to 0.2 percent, or
about one
in 500.
Figure 1. Most people would assume that the likelihood of a
certain amount
of warming follows a bell-shaped curve, with the mean value of
3.6°C the
most likely. But Steve Schneider recently demonstrated that the
cooler half
of the distribution is much more probable.
Of course, this manner of betting the odds assumes we know a lot
about
global warming science and climate change. But despite all our
knowledge, we
may as well be baying at the moon. Come to think of it, that's
not a bad
idea: A closer lunar look reveals something very interesting
about the
earth's climate.
Every new moon occurs when the sun illuminates it from behind. We
can still
see it here on earth, thanks to the light that reflects directly
back from
this planet itself. The brighter (whiter) the earth, the more it
reflects
and the brighter the faint new moon becomes. That phenomenon,
called
"earthshine," gives rise to a measurement of how much
of the sun's incoming
radiation is reflected away. by our planet.
Here's how much we know and have known about climate: Scientists
used to
think that the earth reflected 42 percent of the sun's rays. We
cooked that
number up because, before satellites could tell us otherwise, we
thought the
sun put out a lot more energy than it does. Only by reflecting 42
percent of
its energy could we achieve our present mean surface temperature
of a
comfortable 15°C. When satellite data became available, we
discovered the
sun wasn't warming us as much as we thought, so that reflection
percentage
was adjusted downwards, to around 28 percent. That's a huge
change.
We then assumed that both the sun's output and the earth's
reflectivity were
constant. Silly scientists! It turns out that the sun has been
outputting
more energy in the recent century than it had in past centuries.
In fact, it
is likely the main driver of at least half of the warming of the
planet in
the last 100 years (leaving humans a pretty paltry remainder to
feel guilty
about). According to a recent report in the refereed journal
Geophysical
Research Letters, it turns out that the earth's reflectivity, as
measured by
looking at the new moon, varies by over 2 percent on the scale of
nearly a
decade.
That, too, is a huge number. When you smoosh around all the
greenhouse
effect calculations, it turns out that the observed changes in
the earth's
reflectivity could easily have produced as much warming as humans
might
have. So why isn't it hotter than blazes by now? Want the real
answer? No
one knows!
If you think we know anything about Earth's future climate, try
forecasting
for another planet that isn't as complicated as Earth and whose
reflectivity
doesn't change much over time. Count every planet from Venus to
Neptune out,
because their reflectivity changes noticeably within the lifetime
of
scientists. On the other hand, we're probably pretty good at
predicting the
surface temperature of the remaining two-Mercury and Pluto-over
the next 100
years.
So all we are left with is a planet whose climate we don't
understand
saddled with a political process capitalizing on outlandish,
unscientific
statements that whisk the press and the world into a froth of
hysterical and
expensive policymaking.
Kudos to Steve Schneider for at least calling this to our
attention, despite
the United Nations' attempts to hide the unlikelihood of their
forecast of
climate disaster.
References:
Schneider, S.H., 2001. What is "dangerous" climate
change? Nature, 411,
17-19.
Goode, P.R., et al., 2001. Earthshine observations of the earth's
reflectance, Geophysical Research Letters, 28, 1671-1674.
==============
(10) WHAT'S HOT: FORCING THE ISSUE
From World Climate Report, 14 May 2001
http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/climate/v6n17/hot.htm
Has carbon dioxide (CO2) raised global temperatures? Simple
question,
complex answer. While most climatologists (including the WCR
staff) would no
doubt answer yes, that does not mean that we are right. In
essence, the
debate centers around two questions: "How much?" and
"So what?" But
answering those questions definitively is just about impossible.
Undeterred, several research groups have spent many years and
dollars
attempting to find the CO2 needle in the global temperature
change haystack
using climate model output. By prespecifying the impact of some
factor over
time (such as sulfate aerosols or CO2), researchers can remove
these various
"forcing factors" from temperature records and quantify
the contribution of
each forcing.
It's pretty obvious that the success of that method depends
entirely on our
understanding of what the various signals really are. For
example, if we
don't know what the sun's impact on temperature is, it's
impossible to
remove the solar influence.
In a recent paper in the Journal of Climate, North and Wu from
Texas A&M
used advanced statistical approaches to try to sort out various
forcing
factors in surface air temperatures taken from 72 locations
equally spaced
around the globe.
Essentially, North and Wu examined those surface temperature
records for
evidence of signals arising from greenhouse gases (labeled
"G" in Figure 1),
anthropogenic aerosols ("A"), volcanic dust
("V"), and the 11-year solar
sunspot cycle ("S"). What remains after removing these
signals is presumably
natural background climate variability. The values of those
forcings each
year were estimated using an energy balance climate model and the
control
runs of several general circulation models. They compared the
results using
subsets of tropical and global stations with 100-year records or
combinations of locations with 50- and 100-year records.
Figure 1 summarizes the important results. The mean signal
strength within
each station grouping is plotted with a symbol (asterisk,
triangle, etc.),
and the vertical bars show the 90 percent confidence band. If the
vertical
bars include the zero value, then it's not possible to state with
confidence
that this represents a "true signal." If everything is
working like the
models predict, then each value should equal one.
Figure 1. http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/climate/v6n17/hot.htm
The impact of the solar signal (panel a); greenhouse gases (panel
b);
volcanic dust (panel c); and human-induced aerosols (panel d) on
spatial
patterns of global temperatures. (* = 20 tropical stations with
100-year
records; x = 36 stations; diamond = 43 tropical stations with 50-
or
100-year records; triangle = 72 global stations with 50- or
100-year
records; circle = 72 stations with 50-year records). If the
vertical error
bars include the value of zero, then that relationship is not
significant.
Note that, unlike for other forcings, the impact of aerosols is
unknown.
Panel b shows the impact of greenhouse gases. These estimates'
high
confidence shows that, from this analysis, there is a measurable
CO2 impact
on global temperatures over the last 100 years. The value of the
greenhouse
signal varies between data subset and model, but hovers around
the 0.6
range, much lower than the anticipated value of one.
The volcanic signal (Panel c), is also significant in each test,
although
the error bars are wider than for greenhouse gases. In general,
the strength
of the volcanic signal is comparable to the CO2 signal.
In this analysis, even the solar sunspot cycle is significant.
Although the
error bars are large, they do not encompass the zero value in 17
of the 25
cases run (Panel a). And the solar influence is large (note the
change in
the scale of the vertical axis).
For contrast, let's look at sulfate aerosols (Panel d). Most of
the
relationships are not significant, and it's not clear if the net
effect of
aerosols is even warming or cooling. Sulfates were added to
climate models
in an attempt to bring the large model-induced greenhouse warming
closer to
the realm of believability. They also have been used to justify
sudden
climate shifts-as soon as the atmosphere is cleared of sulfates,
temperatures rocket upward.
Regarding sulfates, North and Wu note that "the question of
aerosol cooling
and its amplitude in the data stream is still unresolved."
Two possible
reasons are a warming effect from absorption within aerosol
droplets and a
cancellation of sulfate warming by tropospheric ozone cooling
(the results
of which are about the same).
But most important, is that the forcing from greenhouse gases is
lower than
expected, according to the authors, "might have serious
implications."
Possible explanations for the weak CO2 signal include; "1)
the surface
temperature field is less sensitive to greenhouse gas increases
than we
thought; 2) climate is sensitive, but the oceans are playing a
greater or
perhaps less obvious role in delaying the warming." WCR has
long documented
that the climate model's have more sensitivity to CO2 increases
than the
real atmosphere, and that the likely warming by the year 2100 is
significantly lower than most current model-generated forecasts.
And North's
second point counters the recent papers on ocean warming of
Levitus and
Barnett, who argue that their models accurately capture deep
ocean
temperature changes (see WCR, Vol. 6, No. 16, 5/30/01).
In summary: 1) Greenhouse gases are responsible for less of the
warming over
the last century than the models predict; 2) Natural
forces-volcanoes and
solar changes-have significant impacts on global temperature
changes; and 3)
the net role of sulfates is unknown or zero. And the 4th
conclusion follows
from the first three: Global warming alarmists know less about
the causes of
surface temperature change than they think they do.
Reference:
North, G.R. and Q. Wu, 2001. Detecting climate signals using
space-time
EOFs, Journal of Climate, 14, 1839-1863.
=============
(11) STALAGMITE TRIPLES RADIOCARBON DATING EFFECTIVENESS
From UniSci, 14 May 2001
http://unisci.com/stories/20012/0514012.htm
A team of American and British scientists report that radiocarbon
levels in
Earth's atmosphere during the last Ice Age were more than twice
as high as
today, higher even than the nuclear weapons tests of nearly half
a century
ago.
They also reported in the May 11 issue of the journal Science of
having
extended the record for atmospheric radiocarbon more than 45,000
years.
The researchers, who come from the University of Arizona,
University of
Bristol (U.K.) and the University of Minnesota, were able to
extract a
precise and near-continuous record of atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels in a
half-meter-long stalagmite that formed during the last glacial
period in a
cave that now lies underwater in the Bahamas.
Marking time with carbon 14 requires an accurate record of
atmospheric
radiocarbon through time. Archaeologists, for example, use the
radiocarbon
time scale to date artifacts, but dates were only accurate as far
back as
16,000 years. The information contained in the stalagmite
effectively
triples the calibration period.
University of Arizona physicist J. Warren Beck and his colleagues
also
discovered that atmospheric carbon 14 levels soared dramatically
between
45,000 and 33,000 years ago. Beck says even more interesting was
a dramatic
spike in radiocarbon levels during a millennium that began 44,300
years ago,
nearly twice as high as the "bomb pulse" produced
during nuclear weapons
testing in the 1950s and 60s.
The radiocarbon peak Beck and his colleagues found correlates to
other peaks
for other radioactive isotopes -- beryllium 10 and chlorine36 --
found in
polar ice cores and lake sediments. All three isotopes are
produced when
cosmic rays bombard Earth's upper atmosphere.
Beck says this suggests much higher levels of cosmic rays were
striking the
atmosphere during the Ice Age.
While scientists have known for some time that atmospheric carbon
14 levels
were higher and more variable in the Ice Age atmosphere than
today, "the
magnitude of variation revealed by our stalagmite is
surprising," Beck and
the others write in Science.
J. Warren Beck of the University of Arizona and David A. Richards
of the
University of Bristol, U.K, collaborated in the 3-year study with
R.
Lawrence Edwards of the University of Minnesota, Bernard W.
Silverman and
Peter L. Smart of the University of Bristol, and Beck's
colleagues at the UA
National Science Foundation Accelerator Mass Spectrometer
Facility --
Douglas J. Donahue, Sofia Hererra-Osterheld, George S. Burr, Leal
Calsoyas,
A.J. Timothy Jull, and Dana Biddulph.
The team dedicated the article to the memory of Robert Palmer and
Robert
Parker, who made "invaluable contributions to exploration
and fieldwork in
the Blue Holes of the Bahamas" and who died in separate
diving incidents in
1997.
The researchers used mathematical simulations to examine which of
four
possible factors might have produced high concentrations of
radiocarbon in
the atmosphere.
Three phenomena affect the rate at which cosmogenic isotopes are
produced in
Earth's stratosphere. One is cosmic ray flux, the intensity of
very
high-energy "galactic" radiation coming from beyond the
solar system. Two
others are the strength of the sun's electromagnetic field and
Earth's own
magnetic field, both of which deflect cosmic radiation.
>From rigorous theoretical modeling, Beck and the others
conclude that
variations in the strength of the solar electromagnetic field and
in the
intensity of Earth's magnetic field alone aren't enough to
explain the
fluctuations in radioisotope levels found in their stalagmite.
And, Beck adds, while it is possible that a burst of galactic
cosmic rays
from a nearby supernova explosion dramatically increased
production of
cosmogenic isotopes -- as previously hypothesized in other
research by UA
geoscientists Alex McCord and Paul Damon -- whether a supernova
explosion
would be powerful enough to push aside the heliosphere that
shields Earth
from galactic cosmic rays "is an open question."
Any one or a combination of the three cosmogenic scenarios may
have
contributed to elevated CO2 levels during the Ice Age.
"But the bottom line is that Earth's carbon cycle was
significantly
different than it is today," Beck said.
The fourth factor is the structure of Earth's carbon cycle. Most
carbon on
Earth is locked up in limestone and fossil fuel. A relatively
small amount
of "active" carbon circulates through the atmosphere,
oceans, soils and
biota.
The authors concluded -- based on their mathematical models --
that changes
in the carbon cycle must also be partly to blame for the large
fluctuations
in the amount of atmospheric radiocarbon they observed. In
particular, they
say that the carbon cycle must have operated more slowly during
the last Ice
Age than today.
One way the carbon cycle may have differed during the Ice Age is
a slower
rate of ocean organism deposition on the deep ocean floor. More
organic
carbon would in that case be exchanged with the surface ocean and
atmosphere.
Modeling that scenario comes closer to the actual evidence,
"but even this
doesn't match the high concentrations in the observed
record," Beck said.
What had to have been going on, according to their models, is a
slower rate
of carbon exchange between the surface ocean and the deep ocean.
"If we slow
that rate by about a third of the modern exchange rate, we get a
simulation
that looks like the observed evidence. Ocean mixing during the
glacial
period must have taken longer than it is today, " Beck said.
Ocean mixing in the geological present occurs primarily at two
high latitude
regions, in the North Atlantic and off the shores of Antarctica.
A breakup
of western Antarctic ice sheets, or an increase in freshwater
icebergs
floating into these regions, or changes in wind that contributes
to ocean
mixing, influence ocean mixing rates and could trigger abrupt
change in the
carbon cycle to produce greater concentrations of atmospheric
carbon
dioxide, Beck said.
While the cause of implied changes in ocean mixing rates or
carbonate
sedimentation rates is unknown, the authors conclude, the
observation that
the carbon cycle was significantly more sluggish in the recent
past "may
have profound implications regarding the oceans' capacity to take
up
anthropogenic CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning.
"We should take this as a warning that climate changes may
affect the carbon
cycle in previously unexpected ways," Beck said. - By Lori
Stiles
[Contact: J. Warren Beck, Lori Stiles]
14-May-2001
Copyright 2001, UniSci
=============
(12) COMMENTARY OF THE WEEK: THE CO2-CLIMATE DEBATE - WHO HOLDS
THE MORAL
HIGH GROUND?
From CO2 Science Magazine, 16 May 2001
http://www.co2science.org/edit/v4_edit/v4n20edit.htm
Periodically, we receive communications from people who feel it
is their
moral duty to lecture us on what they believe to be the misguided
opinions
we express in our weekly editorials, such as our idea that the
ongoing rise
in the air's CO2 content is a blessing in disguise, in that it
should
stimulate global vegetative productivity while having next to no
impact on
the planet's temperature. One such seeric source of ethical
advice began
his most recent scolding of us by saying "I must encourage
you to leave your
work... You are intentionally encouraging behavior which is
unnatural and
unspiritual, for the interest of industry profit... burning up
our planet
for the sake of General Motors and Kentucky Fried Chicken... You
have chosen
to steal your children's planet from them."
We find it both amusing and disturbing that some people are
absolutely
certain they know what is right for the world without investing
any effort
whatsoever in a serious search for truth, especially when the
subject in
question is as complex and confounding as the CO2-climate issue,
about which
some of the world's most knowledgeable scientists cannot agree.
This latest
diatribe, for example, presupposes that the ongoing rise in the
air's CO2
content is in fact "burning up our planet." But how
does our spiritual
advisor know that? We are confident it is not because he has
spent a
lifetime studying the subject; for if he had, we would surely
have crossed
paths long before now. Hence, we must presume his
"knowledge" of the subject
is not data-driven. If it were, he would likely have known
it was
significantly warmer than it is currently during all four of the
previous
interglacials, when there was a heck of a lot less CO2 in the air
than there
is now (see our Journal Review Nearly Half a Million Years of
Climate and
CO2). And what does that fact say about CO2 and
temperature? Scientists
argue about it; but nearly all would probably be agreed that it
certainly
says nothing to confirm what our self-anointed seer suggests.
Then there's the "chicken and egg" question. In the
many instances of what
some global warming advocates misleadingly call the
"lockstep" changes in
CO2 and temperature that have been documented to have occurred
over this
half-million-year period (and earlier times as well), it is
instructive to
consider "what came first," since cause must surely
precede effect. And if
one looks at the scientific data, rather than merely divining the
answer, it
is invariably temperature that is seen to rise or fall first (see
the many
examples of this phenomenon that are documented in our Subject
Index under
the heading CO2-Temperature Correlations); and this observation
suggests -
if anything, for correlation alone proves nothing - that it is
temperature
that causes CO2 to respond, and not vice versa. Now, is
this tentative
conclusion natural? Or is it unnatural? Spiritual or
unspiritual?
Whatever one calls it, it is, simply, the closest approximation
to the truth
that one can deduce at the present time.
"You have chosen to steal your children's planet from
them," our antagonist
says. How so? By championing the most well-established fact
of the entire
CO2-climate debate and reporting that literally thousands of
laboratory and
field experiments have established beyond any doubt whatsoever
that more CO2
in the air creates more numerous and more robust plants that can
provide
more food to support greater numbers of animals, as well as
humans? No way.
We're not stealing our children's planet from them; we're trying
to reclaim
it for them. And for all the rest of the biosphere as well!
In fact, we
truly feel we are "greener" than any organization on
the face of the earth.
Seeking the best for life, in all its wonderful variety and
complexity, is
what we're all about; and maintaining - or even enhancing -
ecosystem
diversity and vitality is the thought that drives us, day and
night, to do
what we do. And what is that? It is to sing the praises of
carbon dioxide.
After all, life on earth is based on carbon, so much so, in fact,
that
scientists refer to us, and all our biospheric relatives, as
carbon-based
lifeforms. And the much-maligned CO2 molecule is the primary raw
material
that our vegetative cousins extract from the air to provide
themselves, and
us, with what makes all the members of the biospheric family what
we are.
That's as natural as it can be; and, if you will, as spiritual as
it can be.
For all this, however, we are accused of "convincing people
that the crude
technologies we employ for our personal convenience are more
important than
the living planet which we depend upon" and of "saying
it is okay to waste
and consume for short term convenience." Hogwash! Nothing
could be further
from the truth. Nowhere have we ever said, or even implied, such
things. And
to say we are working "for the interest of industry
profit" is a blatant
misrepresentation of the facts, i.e., what in less polite
conversation would
be called a lie. No, we are working solely for the interest of
the biosphere
and the welfare of all the many lifeforms of which it is
comprised.
This is not to say, however, that we know the truth of all
matters related
to the global change debate, nor that we will not make a misstep
now and
then in our interpretation of the available evidence. Indeed, we
lay no
claim to any special source of knowledge that is not available to
anyone
else on the planet, nor do we pretend to possess superlative
powers of
discernment, as do so many of our detractors. No, we just look at
the data
like everyone else does (or should) and do our level best to
decide what
they mean.
So who holds the moral high ground in the CO2-climate debate?
We'd like to
think we do; but the self-righteous overconfidence born of
thinking of
oneself in that light can be a blinding and dangerous influence,
and we
therefore proceed with much trepidation and introspection, as we
continually
evaluate and reevaluate the mountains of new evidence that become
available
almost daily, courtesy of the great scientific effort that is
focused on
resolving this most complex of environmental issues. As for
our spiritual
antagonist, he falls short as well. His heart may be in the right
place, as
are the hearts of many people on both sides of the controversy;
but the
relation of his head to the rest of his body is a far different
matter. This
is not to say he is not a rational person. He may, in fact,
be even more
brilliant than we, which is, however, not saying a whole lot, for
we're both
pretty much your run-of-the-mill scientists. No, it is neither
self-proclaimed virtue nor innate intellectual capacity that
determines
morality in this debate; rather, it is knowledge of the truth and
how one
acts upon that knowledge. Ergo, the great importance, firstly, of
obtaining
scientifically-confirmed facts and, secondly and subsequently, of
exercising
character; for without a knowledge of the truth, what good are
good
intentions? They will lead you to do evil as well as good
if you know not
the true workings of the systems in question.
Clearly, we would all do well to seriously examine the scientific
basis for
what we believe about CO2 and its potential for evoking global
change - both
good, as in stimulating biospheric productivity, and bad, as in
catastrophically warming the globe - by asking ourselves these
two things:
First, what do we truly know - and not know - about these
subjects? And
second, what are we doing on the basis of what we know or don't
know? When
our lives are over and our actions evaluated in the perfect
hindsight the
historians of tomorrow will surely possess, our
"morality" with respect to
the CO2-global change issue will be determined by how truthfully
we answered
these two questions. May all of us approach this weighty
responsibility
with the seriousness and brutal honesty it truly deserves, that
our
descendents will one day look back with pride and thanksgiving
upon the
actions we took, when the future of the earth once truly did
"hang in the
balance."
Dr. Craig D. Idso, President
Dr. Keith E. Idso, Vice President
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(13) UPSETTING THE SCOTS AND IRISH
From Duncan Steel <D.I.Steel@salford.ac.uk>
Dear Benny,
Unfortunately the testimony by Richard S. Lindzen to a U.S.
Senate committee
carried today in CCNet 'Climate Change and Climate Scares'
perhaps has the
potential to offend a significant fraction of the people
inhabiting the
British Isles.
>To quote the great 19th Century English scientist, Lord
Kelvin, "When you
>can measure what you are speaking about and express it in
numbers, you know
>something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you
cannot express
>it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and
unsatisfactory kind."
Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) was an Ulsterman, born in Belfast
(then - in
1824 - part of Ireland, period; now part of Northern Ireland).
Although he
was a student at Cambridge (that *is* in England) he worked most
of his life
at the University of Glasgow (that's in Scotland). For more
information,
see:
http://www.irsa.ie/Resources/Heritage/WThom.html
http://level2.phys.strath.ac.uk/ScienceOnStreets/lordkelvin.html
Cheers,
Duncan Steel
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