PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet CLIAMTE SCARES & CLIMATE CHANGE - 20 June 2001
----------------------------------------------------
"Global warming is a natural geological process that could
begin to
reverse itself within 10 to 20 years, predicts an Ohio State
University
researcher. The researcher suggests that atmospheric carbon
dioxide
-- often thought of as a key "greenhouse gas" -- is not
the cause of
global warming. The opposite is most likely to be true, according
to Robert
Essenhigh, E.G. Bailey Professor of Energy Conservation in Ohio
State's
Department of Mechanical Engineering. It is the rising global
temperatures
that are naturally increasing the levels of carbon dioxide, not
the other
way around, he says."
--Pam Frost Gorder, Ohio State University,
"The concept of lunar forcing of climate appears to be
gaining
momentum in climate change discussions. According to one recent
study,
the tidal force exerted by the moon is hypothesized to be an
important
external mechanism responsible for regulating sea surface
temperatures
tied to ENSO events. [...] Tidal forcing has also been suggested
as a major
player in driving the world's great thermohaline circulation.
[...] All of
these studies serve to illustrate just how complex earth's
climate system
is, and that lunar, as well as solar, phenomena may be as
important as
anything else in determining the climatic state of the
earth."
--Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
"Is the media misreporting of global warming a product of
bias,
stupidity, carelessness, or all three? Richard Lindzen, professor
of
meteorology at MIT and one of 11 scientists who wrote the report
the
National Academy of Sciences sent to President Bush last week is
among
those who wonders why journalists always seem to get the facts
wrong."
--Jack Kelly, Post-Gazette News, 17 June 2001
===============
(1) GLOBAL WARMING NATURAL, MAY END WITHIN 20 YEARS
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(2) MOON, TIDES AND CLIMATE
CO2 Science Magazine, 20 June 2001
(3) EVIDENCE FOR EL NINO AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
Eurekalert, 18 June 2001
(4) NORWEGIAN SEA PROPOSED FOR CO2 STORAGE
Harvey Leifert <hleifert@agu.org>
(5) A 21st-CENTURY WEAKENING OF THE THERMOHALINE CIRCULATION?
CO2 Science Magazine, 13 June 2001
(6) FACTS & GLOBAL WARMING: A PROMINENT SCIENTIST SAYS THE
MEDIA GOT IT WRONG
Post-Gazette News, 17 June 2001
(7) UNPRECEDENTED WARMTH IN NORTHERN QUEBEC?
CO2 Science Magazine, 20 June 2001
(8) HEATING AND COOLING DEGREE-DAYS IN TURKEY
CO2 Science Magazine, 20 June 2001
(9) BOREHOLE TEMPERATURE RECORDS
C02 Science Magazine, 20 June 2001
(10) GLOBAL WARMING AND COOLING
Booksonline, June 2001
(11) THE COLLAPSE OF THE KYOTO PROTOCOL
Amazon.com
(12) CCNet AND ITS TOPICS
Charles Petit <cpetit@usnews.com>
================
(1) GLOBAL WARMING NATURAL, MAY END WITHIN 20 YEARS
From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
Ohio State University
Contact: Robert Essenhigh, (614) 292-0403; Essenhigh.1@osu.edu
Written by Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-9475; Gorder.1@osu.edu
6/14/01
VIEWPOINT: GLOBAL WARMING NATURAL, MAY END WITHIN 20 YEARS
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Global warming is a natural geological process
that could
begin to reverse itself within 10 to 20 years, predicts an Ohio
State
University researcher.
The researcher suggests that atmospheric carbon dioxide -- often
thought of
as a key "greenhouse gas" -- is not the cause of global
warming. The
opposite is most likely to be true, according to Robert
Essenhigh, E.G.
Bailey Professor of Energy Conservation in Ohio State's
Department of
Mechanical Engineering. It is the rising global temperatures that
are
naturally increasing the levels of carbon dioxide, not the other
way around,
he says.
Essenhigh explains his position in a "viewpoint"
article in the current
issue of the journal Chemical Innovation, published by the
American Chemical
Society.
Many people blame global warming on carbon dioxide sent into the
atmosphere
from burning fossil fuels in man-made devices such as automobiles
and power
plants. Essenhigh believes these people fail to account for the
much greater
amount of carbon dioxide that enters -- and leaves -- the
atmosphere as part
of the natural cycle of water exchange from, and back into, the
sea and
vegetation.
"Many scientists who have tried to mathematically determine
the relationship
between carbon dioxide and global temperature would appear to
have vastly
underestimated the significance of water in the atmosphere as a
radiation-absorbing gas," Essenhigh argues. "If you
ignore the water, you're
going to get the wrong answer."
How could so many scientists miss out on this critical bit of
information,
as Essenhigh believes? He said a National Academy of Sciences
report on
carbon dioxide levels that was published in 1977 omitted
information about
water as a gas and identified it only as vapor, which means
condensed water
or cloud, which is at a much lower concentration in the
atmosphere; and most
subsequent investigations into this area evidently have built
upon the
pattern of that report.
For his hypothesis, Essenhigh examined data from various other
sources,
including measurements of ocean evaporation rates, man-made
sources of
carbon dioxide, and global temperature data for the last one
million years.
He cites a 1995 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change
(IPCC), a panel formed by the World Meteorological Organization
and the
United Nations Environment Programme in 1988 to assess the risk
of
human-induced climate change. In the report, the IPCC wrote that
some 90
billion tons of carbon as carbon dioxide annually circulate
between the
earth's ocean and the atmosphere, and another 60 billion tons
exchange
between the vegetation and the atmosphere.
Compared to man-made sources' emission of about 5 to 6 billion
tons per
year, the natural sources would then account for more than 95
percent of all
atmospheric carbon dioxide, Essenhigh said.
"At 6 billion tons, humans are then responsible for a
comparatively small
amount -- less than 5 percent -- of atmospheric carbon
dioxide," he said.
"And if nature is the source of the rest of the carbon
dioxide, then it is
difficult to see that man-made carbon dioxide can be driving the
rising
temperatures. In fact, I don't believe it does."
Some scientists believe that the human contribution to carbon
dioxide in the
atmosphere, however small, is of a critical amount that could
nonetheless
upset Earth's environmental balance. But Essenhigh feels that,
mathematically, that hypothesis hasn't been adequately
substantiated.
Here's how Essenhigh sees the global temperature system working:
As
temperatures rise, the carbon dioxide equilibrium in the water
changes, and
this releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. According
to this
scenario, atmospheric carbon dioxide is then an indicator of
rising
temperatures -- not the driving force behind it.
Essenhigh attributes the current reported rise in global
temperatures to a
natural cycle of warming and cooling.
He examined data that Cambridge University geologists Nicholas
Shackleton
and Neil Opdyke reported in the journal Quaternary Research in
1973, which
found that global temperatures have been oscillating steadily,
with an
average rising gradually, over the last one million years -- long
before
human industry began to release carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere. Opdyke
is now at the University of Florida.
According to Shackleton and Opdyke's data, average global
temperatures have
risen less than one degree in the last million years, though the
amplitude
of the periodic oscillation has now risen in that time from about
5 degrees
to about 10 degrees, with a period of about 100,000 years.
"Today, we are simply near a peak in the current cycle that
started about
25,000 years ago," Essenhigh explained.
As to why highs and lows follow a 100,000 year cycle, the
explanation
Essenhigh uses is that the Arctic Ocean acts as a giant
temperature
regulator, an idea known as the "Arctic Ocean Model."
This model first
appeared over 30 years ago and is well presented in the 1974 book
Weather
Machine: How our weather works and why it is changing, by Nigel
Calder, a
former editor of New Scientist magazine.
According to this model, when the Arctic Ocean is frozen over, as
it is
today, Essenhigh said, it prevents evaporation of water that
would otherwise
escape to the atmosphere and then return as snow. When there is
less snow to
replenish the Arctic ice cap, the cap may start to shrink.
That could be the cause behind the retreat of the Arctic ice cap
that
scientists are documenting today, Essenhigh said.
As the ice cap melts, the earth warms, until the Arctic Ocean
opens again.
Once enough water is available by evaporation from the ocean into
the
atmosphere, snows can begin to replenish the ice cap. At that
point, the
Arctic ice begins to expand, the global temperature can then
start to
reverse, and the earth can start re-entry to a new ice age.
According to Essenhigh's estimations, Earth may reach a peak in
the current
temperature profile within the next 10 to 20 years, and then it
could begin
to cool into a new ice age.
Essenhigh knows that his scientific opinion is a minority one. As
far as he
knows, he's the only person who's linked global warming and
carbon dioxide
in this particular way. But he maintains his evaluations
represent an
improvement on those of the majority opinion, because they are
logically
rigorous and includes water vapor as a far more significant
factor than in
other studies.
"If there are flaws in these propositions, I'm
listening," he wrote in his
Chemical Innovation paper. "But if there are objections,
let's have them
with the numbers."
==========
(2) MOON, TIDES AND CLIMATE
From CO2 Science Magazine, 20 June 2001
http://www.co2science.org/subject/o/summaries/oceantides.htm
Ocean Tides - Summary
The concept of lunar forcing of climate appears to be gaining
momentum in
climate change discussions. According to one recent study, the
tidal force
exerted by the moon is hypothesized to be an important external
mechanism
responsible for regulating sea surface temperatures tied to ENSO
events.
Cerveny and Shaffer (2001), for example, report finding a
statistically
significant correlation between maximum lunar declination (MLD)
and both
equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature and South Pacific
atmospheric
pressure (the Southern Oscillation Index) over the period
1854-1999. Under
high MLD, circulation in the Pacific gyre is enhanced by tidal
forces,
inducing cold-water advection into the equatorial region that is
characteristic of La Niña conditions. Under low MLD, on
the other hand,
tidal forcing is weakened, cold water advection is reduced, and
warmer sea
surface conditions characteristic of El Niño prevail.
Tidal forcing has also been suggested as a major player in
driving the
world's great thermohaline circulation (Munk and Wunsch, 1998;
Wunsch,
2000); and Egbert and Ray (2000) have used Topex/Poseidon
satellite
altimeter data to empirically quantify the spatial distribution
of deep-sea
tidal energy dissipation, verifying predictions of Munk and
Wunsch related
to this subject (see our Journal Review Lunar Tides and Climate
Change).
All of these studies serve to illustrate just how complex earth's
climate
system is, and that lunar, as well as solar, phenomena may be as
important
as anything else in determining the climatic state of the earth.
References
Cerveny, R.S. and Shaffer, J.A. 2001. The moon and El Niño.
Geophysical
Research Letters 28: 25-28.
Egbert, G.D. and Ray, R.D. 2000. Significant dissipation of tidal
energy in
the deep ocean inferred from satellite altimeter data.
Nature 405: 775-778.
Munk, W.H. and Wunsch, C. 1998. Abyssal recipes II: Energetics of
tidal and
wind mixing. Deep-Sea Research 45: 1977-2010.
Wunsch, C. 2000. Moon, tides and climate. Nature 405: 743-744.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
========
(3) EVIDENCE FOR EL NINO AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
From Eurekalert, 18 June 2001
http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/uom-efe061801.html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 18 JUNE 2001
Contact: Nicolas R. Houtman
houtman@maine.edu
207-581-3777
University of Maine
Evidence for El Niño and cultural development
In the July issue of the journal Geology, a team of researchers
has
suggested that the climate phenomenon known as El Niño has been
a
contributing factor in the rise and fall of ancient civilizations
in Peru.
Using archeological evidence from sites along the Peruvian coast,
scientists
from the University of Maine, Yale University, University of
Pittsburgh and
University of Miami suggest that the fate of organized Peruvian
societies
may be related to environmental changes caused by flood cycles
starting
about 5,000 years ago.
Daniel Sandweiss of the UMaine Department of Anthropology and
Institute for
Quaternary and Climate Studies (IQCS), is lead author of the
article which
describes changes in mollusk assemblages in midden heaps.
Co-authors are
Kirk Maasch of the UMaine Dept. of Geological Sciences and IQCS,
Richard L.
Burger of Yale University, James B. Richardson III and Harold B.
Rollins of
the University of Pittsburgh and Amy Clement of the University of
Miami.
"We found that there was a change in the frequency of El
Niño events about
3,000 years ago and that this correlates in time with cultural
change," says
Sandweiss.
Other researchers have reported evidence from Central and North
America,
Greenland and the Middle East that suggests a relationship
between climate
and culture. "We don't argue that climate is the driving
force behind
cultural development, but the evidence points to a strong
contributory
role," says Sandweiss.
Mollusks are good environmental indicators, Sandweiss adds,
because they are
sensitive to rising temperatures. Since 1982, one species,
Mesodesma
donacium, has been driven further south, likely as a result of El
Niño
events. Researchers have shown that another species that lives
further south
along the Chilean coast, Choromytilus chorus, dies at an
increasing rate
when faced with water temperatures similar to those brought on by
El Niño.
In ancient Peruvian sites, these two species were common in
middens between
9 and 7 degrees south latitude but had disappeared by about 2,800
years ago.
"The rapid disappearance of these species from northern
Peruvian
archaeological sites probably reflects an increase in the
frequency of
strong El Niño events to within the modern range of
variability," the
Geology paper states.
Early cultural development in coastal Peru has been dated to just
after the
apparent onset of El Niño about 5,800 years ago. It is marked by
large
temple complexes and elaborate public art. These systems had
collapsed by
the period between 2,900 and 2,800 years ago. The longest lasting
of the
temple complexes is also the only one in which evidence of flood
mitigation
has been found.
"By doing something proactive about El Niño, the leaders of
this site
(Manchay Bajo) appear to have been making an appropriate response
to changes
in their environment. Whether or not it really worked for the
most serious
effects of El Niño we can't say, but if it did, that could have
given them
more long-lasting control," Sandweiss suggests.
"The close temporal correlation between these changes in El
Niño frequency
and the construction and abandonment of monumental temples in
this region
suggests that climate and culture are here linked in a complex
causal
network," the authors wrote.
==============
(4) NORWEGIAN SEA PROPOSED FOR CO2 STORAGE
From Harvey Leifert <hleifert@agu.org>
American Geophysical Union
June 18, 2001
AGU Release NO. 01-21
For Immediate Release
Contact: Harvey Leifert
(202) 777-7507
hleifert@agu.org
Norwegian Sea Proposed as Storage Site for
Carbon Dioxide
WASHINGTON - Researchers in Bergen, Norway, have proposed a large
scale
demonstration project, in which carbon dioxide (CO2) would be
pumped
directly from offshore oil and gas fields to the deep waters of
the
Norwegian Sea. The project would test the conclusions of a
theoretical
study, using computer models, that suggests the Norwegian Sea,
through
transport to the Atlantic Ocean, would provide safe, long term
storage of
this greenhouse gas, which would otherwise enter the atmosphere
and
contribute to global warming.
Drs. Helge Drange and Guttorm Alendal and Prof. Ola M.
Johannessen at the
Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Bergen will
publish their
study in the 1 July issue of Geophysical Research Letters,
published by the
American Geophysical Union. They note that the oceans already
absorb carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere, but the process of mixing the gas at
deep
levels can take up to 1,000 years. Purposeful storage could, they
say, be
viewed as an acceleration of a natural process. This option would
be
successful only if certain environmental and economic
considerations can be
satisfied, they note.
The Norwegian Sea is a deep basin off Norway's northwestern
coast, beyond
Haltenbanken, a region on the continental shelf where oil and gas
fields
produce carbon dioxide as a by-product. The modeling study
assumes the
annual carbon dioxide emissions from various size gas power
plants over a
ten year period. Drange and his colleagues considered the effect
of
releasing carbon dioxide, collected at the source, at various
depths from
350 to 950 meters [1,150-3,120 feet]. They conclude that if the
initial size
of the carbon dioxide particles is four millimeters [0.2 inches]
or less,
the plume would rise no more than 100 meters [330 feet] from the
point it
enters the ocean.
Once the injected carbon dioxide has dissolved in the seawater,
it tends to
sink lower and eventually transport to the Atlantic Ocean through
passages
between Iceland and Scotland. Its acidity, higher than that of
the ambient
seawater, could affect deep sea organisms, which are used to a
relatively
constant chemical environment. This is an area the researchers
say needs
further study. They say the level of acidity can be reduced by
not pumping
all of the carbon dioxide to one point, but using rather an array
of ports
located 5-10 meters [16-33 feet] apart in the cross-stream of the
prevailing
current.
The model predicts how much carbon dioxide would rapidly reach
the surface
and enter the atmosphere, based on the depth at which it was
originally
released. The researchers say that 600 meters [2,000 feet] is the
minimal
safe depth, and 800 meters [2,600 feet] still safer. At the depth
of 950
meters [3,100 feet], virtually no "outgassing" occurs,
and the carbon
dioxide-enriched water stays well below the level at which it
might mix with
upper ocean water. Following normal flows from the Norwegian Sea,
this water
will enter the northern Atlantic Ocean as bottom water and remain
isolated
from the atmosphere for centuries.
Aside from the question of possible effects on deep ocean
organisms, the
process of sequestering carbon dioxide in the Norwegian Sea would
have to be
economically viable, the researchers say. They find that the
technology is
presently available, and the cost of implementing the project
might actually
be lower than the tax the Norwegian government now imposes on
emissions of
carbon dioxide from offshore oil and gas fields.
Drange and colleagues emphasize that their theoretical
conclusions must be
tested in real world conditions, including the cumulative effects
of
instituting many such sequestration projects, rather than just
one. Among
the issues to be addressed are the impact on marine organisms and
the
independent effect of increasing acidification of ocean surface
waters, due
to higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
The study was funded by Saga Petroleum AS, the Norwegian Research
Council,
the Nordic Council of Ministers, and the EC Environmental and
Climate
Programme.
**********
Notes for journalists:
The paper, Helge Drange, Guttorm Alendal, Ola M. Johannessen,
"Ocean release
of fossil fuel CO2: A case study," will appear in
Geophysical Research
Letters, Vol. 28, no. 13 (1 July 2001), pages 2,637-2,640. An
advance copy
may be obtained on request to Dawn McGee at dmcgee@agu.org (indicate whether
you prefer a PDF file by email or a fax). Please include your
name, name of
publication, phone, fax, and email address in your request.
The authors may be contacted as follows (from U.S.A., dial 011
first):
Dr. Helge Drange, helge.drange@nrsc.no
- phone - +47 55297288
Dr. Guttorm Alendal, guttorm.alendal@nrsc.no
- phone - +47 55297288
Prof. Ola M. Johannessen, ola.johannessen@nrsc.no
- phone - +47 55297288
===========
(5) A 21st-CENTURY WEAKENING OF THE THERMOHALINE CIRCULATION?
From CO2 Science Magazine, 13 June 2001
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n24c2.htm
Reference
Gent, P.R. 2001. Will the North Atlantic Ocean thermohaline
circulation
weaken during the 21st century? Geophysical Research Letters 28:
1023-1026.
What was done
A number of researchers have run global climate model simulations
into the
future in an attempt to determine whether or not CO2-induced
global warming
will significantly affect the thermohaline circulation of the
world's
oceans, with some of the models predicting a significant
weakening of this
global ocean-water "conveyor belt." In a new study of
this subject, Gent
uses the Climate System Model - a coupled general circulation
model with
atmosphere, ocean, land and sea-ice components - to evaluate the
strength of
the thermohaline circulation through the 21st century.
What was learned
The model simulations showed the Northwest Atlantic becoming
warmer and more
saline, which changes had little net effect on the surface water
density in
this part of the world and, hence, led to little net change in
the rate of
deep water formation in this important deep-water source region.
Thus, the
author concluded there is "no evidence of a significant
weakening of the
thermohaline circulation" over the 21st century.
What it means
As with all model studies, there are a number of caveats that
must be
attached to the findings of this report; and the author lists
several that
could affect the outcome of his modeling exercise, stressing that
determining the behavior of the thermohaline circulation in the
21st century
is "a very demanding question to ask of current
state-of-the-art coupled
climate models." Yet, it is an important question to
ask, because the
thermohaline circulation is a major contributor to world climate
and that of
Europe in particular. Clearly, however, a firm understanding of
this
phenomenon has yet to be achieved, which suggests that the
ultimate impact
of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 concentration is far from
known with
any degree of certainty.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change
===========
(6) FACTS & GLOBAL WARMING: A PROMINENT SCIENTIST SAYS THE
MEDIA GOT IT WRONG
From Post-Gazette News, 17 June 2001
http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/20010617kellyforump6.asp
Jack Kelly: Facts and global warming
A prominent scientist says the media got it wrong
Sunday, June 17, 2001
Is the media misreporting of global warming a product of bias,
stupidity,
carelessness, or all three? Richard Lindzen, professor of
meteorology at MIT
and one of 11 scientists who wrote the report the National
Academy of
Sciences sent to President Bush last week is among those who
wonders why
journalists always seem to get the facts wrong.
CNN's Michelle Mitchell, whose coverage was typical, said the NAS
report
represented "a unanimous decision that global warming is
real, is getting
worse, and is due to man. There is no wiggle room."
None of this is true, said Lindzen in an op-ed piece in the Wall
Street
Journal.
"Science, in the public arena, is commonly used as a source
of authority
with which to bludgeon political opponents and propagandize
uninformed
citizens," Lindzen wrote. "It is a reprehensible
practice which corrodes our
ability to make rational decisions."
A big problem is that journalists rarely report what the
scientists
themselves said in the NAS report, or in the earlier report of
the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, relying instead on
misleading
summaries prepared by political aides.
"The Summary for Policymakers, which is seen as endorsing
[the UN treaty
drafted at] Kyoto, is commonly presented as the consensus of
thousands of
the world's foremost climate scientists," Lindzen said.
"The NAS panel
essentially concluded that the IPCC's Summary for Policymakers
does not
provide suitable guidance for the U.S. government."
Scientists agree that global mean temperatures are half a degree
Celsius (a
little more than one degree Fahrenheit) warmer than they were a
century ago;
that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been
increasing for
two centuries, and that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas likely
to warm
the Earth, Lindzen said.
But, he said, there is no agreement on whether the warming is
caused
primarily by CO2 emissions, whether it will continue, or whether
it would be
harmful if it did.
"One reason for this uncertainty is that the climate is
always changing,"
Lindzen said. "Two centuries ago, much of the Northern
hemisphere was
emerging from a little ice age. During the Middle Ages, the same
region was
in a warm period. Thirty years ago, we were concerned with global
cooling."
Dr. Sallie Baliunas of Harvard thinks changes in the magnetism of
the sun
are chiefly responsible for changes in the climate on Earth.
"When the sun's magnetism is strong, the sun's energy output
is higher and
the Earth is warmer," she said. "We can reconstruct
[temperature records for
the] Northern Hemisphere about 250 years or so. The ups and downs
of
temperature match almost exactly the ups and downs in
magnetism."
Baliunas doubts that man-made emissions of carbon dioxide
contribute much to
global warming.
"The acid test of all this is the last 22 years of satellite
measurements
made of the lower layer of air of the Earth," she said.
"That layer of air
should be warming quite rapidly. It's where the greenhouse effect
should be
taking place. That layer has not seen a big warming trend. We've
seen a
little bit of warming of the surface, but it can't be caused by
that carbon
dioxide effect in that atmospheric layer, which has no
warming."
Even if global warming is being caused by man-made emissions,
there is
little likelihood the Kyoto treaty, if fully implemented, would
do much
about it, Lindzen said.
"The press has frequently tied the existence of climate
change to a need for
Kyoto," he said. "The NAS panel did not address this
question.
"My own view, consistent with the panel's work, is that the
Kyoto Protocol
would not result in a substantial reduction in global
warming."
But if implemented in its present form, Kyoto would sandbag the
U.S.
economy. It would require the United States to reduce its power
production
by as much as 25 percent, which would have a much more
devastating effect
than did the Arab oil embargo after the Yom Kippur war.
Prior to leaving for Europe, President Bush outlined a plan for
meeting
carbon dioxide emissions goals in the Kyoto treaty without
causing a
depression. The plan deserves a respectful hearing, but is
unlikely to get
it from a news media which either cannot recognize the truth, or
is
unwilling to report it.
Copyright © 1997-2001 PG Publishing. All rights reserved.
===============
(7) UNPRECEDENTED WARMTH IN NORTHERN QUEBEC?
From CO2 Science Magazine, 20 June 2001
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n25c3.htm
Reference
Arseneault, D. and Payette, S. 1997. Reconstruction
of millennial forest
dynamics from tree remains in a subarctic tree line
peatland. Ecology 78:
1873-1883.
What was done
Tree-ring and growth-form sequences obtained from more than 300
spruce
remains buried in a presently treeless peatland located near the
tree line
in northern Québec were analyzed to produce a proxy record of
climate for
this region between 690 and 1591 AD.
What was learned
Over the course of this 900-year time period, the trees of the
region
experienced several episodes of suppressed and rapid growth,
indicative of
both colder and warmer conditions, respectively, than those of
the present.
Cooler (suppressed growth) conditions prevailed between 760-860
and
1025-1400 AD, while warmer (rapid growth) conditions were
prevalent between
700-750, 860-1000, 1400-1450 and 1500-1570 AD.
Analysis of the warm period between 860 and 1000 AD led the
authors to
conclude that the warmth experienced in northern Quebec during
this time
period coincided with the Medieval Warm Period that was
experienced across
the North Atlantic and Northern Europe, which "exceeded in
duration and
magnitude both the 16th and 20th century warm periods identified
previously
[by other scientists] using the same methods."
Furthermore, on the basis of
the current annual temperatures at the author's study site and
the
northernmost 20th century location of the forest, which is
presently 130 km
south of the author's study site, the author concludes that the
"Medieval
Warm Period was approximately 1°C warmer than the 20th
century."
What it means
The results of this study demonstrate the natural oscillatory
nature of
climate in the subarctic region of North America.
Furthermore, they
demonstrate that current temperatures are still about 1°C lower
than they
were during the Medieval Warm Period. The results also
indicate that even
if it warms by yet another degree or so in the next few decades
or coming
century, such warming would not be proof of the current
politically-correct
theory of CO2-induced global warming. It would simply prove
what everyone
has known for a long time now, i.e., that climate naturally
oscillates,
independent of the actions of man.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
===============
(8) HEATING AND COOLING DEGREE-DAYS IN TURKEY
From CO2 Science Magazine, 20 June 2001
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n25c2.htm
Reference
Kadioglu, M., Sen, Z. and Gültekin, L. 2001.
Variations and trends in
Turkish seasonal heating and cooling degree-days. Climatic
Change 49:
209-223.
What was done
Trends in both heating degree-days (HDDs) and cooling degree-days
(CDDs)
were analyzed at 74 stations located throughout Turkey over the
period
1930-1996.
What was learned
Much of Turkey displayed no significant trend in the annual
number of HDDs
or CDDs over the period of record. However, where
significant trends did
exist, they were found to be inconsistent with what is predicted
by
high-resolution global climate models. Decreasing trends in the
number of
CDDs were found in all seasons of the year in the eastern part of
Turkey
(signifying a decreasing trend in mean daily temperature in all
seasons);
while increases in HDDs were reported for the fall in the region
near the
Black Sea (signifying a decreasing trend in mean daily
temperature in the
fall). In other words, over the past 70 years, some parts of
Turkey have
gotten colder, not warmer.
What it means
We concur with the authors when they say the results of their
study "do not
provide empirical support for the model simulations" of
CO2-induced warming
in Turkey. They do, however, provide support for our claim that
there has
been no global warming over the past 70 years.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change
==============
(9) BOREHOLE TEMPERATURE RECORDS
From Co2 Science Magazine, 20 June 2001
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n25c1.htm
Borehole Temperature Records:
Can They Be Used to Reconstruct Accurate Air Temperature
Histories?
Reference
Zhang, T., Barry, R.G., Gilichinsky, D., Bykhovets, S.S.,
Sorokovikov, V.A.
and Ye, J. 2001. An amplified signal of climatic
change in soil
temperatures during the last century at Irkutsk, Russia. Climatic
Change 49:
41-76.
What was done
The authors examined records of soil temperature at various
depths, along
with several climatic indices, including air temperature,
precipitation,
snowfall and snow thickness data, at Irkutsk, Russia over the
period 1898 to
1995.
What was learned
The relationship between air temperature and soil temperature was
found to
be so complex that, in the words of the authors, "changes in
air temperature
alone cannot explain the changes in soil temperatures in this
region."
Among the list of complex findings was the observation that
summer soil
temperatures cooled by up to 4°C while summer air temperatures
experienced a
slight increase; while in the winter, air temperatures increased
between 4
to 6°C, while soil temperatures rose even higher, by as much as
9°C.
Possible explanations for these summer and winter trends include
(1) an
increase in summer rainfall and (2) an increase in early winter
snowfall
coupled with an earlier increase in spring snowmelt,
respectively.
What it means
According to the authors, "when changes in soil temperature
are used as
evidence of climatic warming, caution is required because changes
in soil
temperature are a combined product of changes in air temperature
and
precipitation, especially snowfall and snow cover on
ground." Furthermore,
they stress that "present findings of the surface warming of
permafrost at
high latitudes and ground warming at a certain depth below ground
surface
elsewhere in the world could be fortuitous and may be misleading
since air
temperature alone cannot account for such a ground
warming." Thus, the
potential exists for serious flaws to manifest themselves in
temperature
histories derived from borehole analyses of soil temperature
data.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
=============
(10) GLOBAL WARMING AND COOLING
From Booksonline, June 2001
http://www.booksonline.co.uk/booksol?ac=005238881316651&rtmo=QeS3zmOR&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/01/6/9/boice9.html
Book Review by Philip Stott
The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850
Brian Fagan
Global warming and cooling
From the Armada to the Irish potato famine, climate has made
history
IN September 1588, the retreating Spanish Armada, widely
scattered from the
Bay of Biscay to the western coast of Ireland, was daily battered
by
thrashing storms, "on our beam with a sea up to the heavens
so that the
cables could not hold, nor the sails serve us". Recent
analysis of the
captains' logs has shown that the wind squalls were as high as 60
knots,
near hurricane strength, as a violent cyclonic depression
advanced, the
probable spin-off of a tropical hurricane.
King Philip II's "Great Enterprise" lost more ships to
the weather than to
the English fleet, allowing Queen Elizabeth I's spin doctors to
claim that
"God blew and they were scattered". Rudyard Kipling
thus got it wrong when
he wrote in Puck's Song: "Oh that was where they hauled the
guns/ That smote
King Philip's fleet!" The true winner was a severe climatic
deterioration
between 1560 and 1600 which was characterised by cooler winters
and an 85
per cent increase in storm activity, weather that also caused
wine harvests
to flow late and sour quickly, while famine followed famine upon
epidemic.
Brian Fagan, one of America's leading archaeologists, has written
a most
timely and riveting book examining in minute detail the
ever-changing
relationship between humanity and climate.
In Europe, we are currently obsessed by "global
warming", one of the great
myths of our age. But how would we have enjoyed the winter of
1309-10, an
exceptionally cold and dry year, when the Thames iced over, bread
froze
indoors - even when protected by straw - and shipping was
disrupted from the
Baltic Sea to the English Channel? This was just after the start
of what we
call the Little Ice Age, which can first be detected around 1200
from the
evidence of tree rings and ice cores from Greenland and the
Arctic. It would
go on to curse Europe with great hungers, especially in 1315-19,
1741, and
1816, "the year without a summer".
The book starts with the so-called Medieval Warm Period when
Norse
settlements flourished in Greenland (c 980s) and wine cultivation
graced the
gentler slopes of England. The temperature was warmer than today,
"global
warming" or not, and, according to Fagan, "was an
unqualified blessing for
the rural poor and small farmers". Some climatologists call
it the Medieval
Climate Optimum. It is an intriguing question as to why we now
fear warmth
so much.
Fagan then discusses the terrible vicissitudes of the
"Cooling", a climatic
see-saw of storms, dearth, glacial advances, and prolonged
winters that
occurred from the beginning of the 14th century to the middle of
the 19th
century. Finally, we return to the warming of the modern era,
after the
Little Ice Age had ended in the 19th Century just as it had
begun, - with
famine, the An Ghorta Mor, "The Great Hunger", of
Ireland.
Not all such disasters were, of course, determined by climate.
Fagan rightly
points out that the social and political response to climate-
change is
immensely complex. But he also shows that climate has always
changed and
that such transformation cannot be ignored as a significant
player on the
historical stage of Europe. It is surely a self-deception of our
post-materialist, New-Age world to believe that we can achieve
harmony and
balance in this most chaotic of natural systems.
Carbon dioxide emissions have become the new witchcraft, the most
recent
devil to blame for the inherent instability of climate. But Fagan
is rightly
cautious about current climate-change science, commenting
sensibly that
"long-term climatic projections require models of
mind-boggling complexity"
which "are no better than the technology and software that
run them, or the
data fed into them".
This book, however, is better than any model, for it is a study
of real
climate and real people in Europe throughout the last Millennium.
And the
tale is one of human adaptation, or failure of adaptation, to
inexorable
change that "is almost always abrupt, shifting rapidly
within decades, even
years, and entirely capricious".
Philip Stott is Professor of Biogeography in the University of
London and
Editor of the 'Journal of Biogeography'.
===========
(11) THE COLLAPSE OF THE KYOTO PROTOCOL
From Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691088705/o/qid%3D992777294/sr%3D2-1/ref%3Daps%5Fsr%5Fb%5F1%5F1/107-5027829-7322943
The Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the Struggle to Slow
Global Warming
(Council on Foreign Relations Book)
by David G. Victor
Hardcover - 178 pages (April 1, 2001)
Princeton Univ Pr; ISBN: 0691088705 ; Dimensions (in inches):
0.75 x 8.77 x
5.78
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In the winter of 2000, international talks on the implementation
of planned
emissions standards again faltered, a resolution again postponed.
In The
Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the Struggle to Slow Global
Warming,
scientist David G. Victor of the Council on Foreign Relations
parses the
problem-ridden 1997 agreement. Victor describes the hasty initial
negotiations, the origin of an emissions trading imbroglio
whereby
governments would purchase emissions credits from other countries
rather
than meeting "their Kyoto obligations within their
borders," the impossible
costs of "Kyoto's fantasyland" and the protocol's
inevitable failure. But in
the failure lies the possibility for a manageable solution,
Victor notes.
Publication coincides with Earth Day.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Global warming dominates environmental news as legislatures
worldwide begin
the arduous process of deciding whether to ratify the December
1997 Kyoto
Protocol. Though not everyone was satisfied with the specifics of
Kyoto,
most politicians, policymakers, and analysts hailed it as a vital
first step
in slowing greenhouse warming. David Victor was not among them.
In this
clear and cogent book, Victor explains why the Kyoto Protocol is
unlikely to
enter into force and how its failure will offer the opportunity
to establish
a more realistic alternative.
Kyoto's fatal flaw, Victor argues, is that it can work only if
emissions
trading works. The Protocol requires industrialized nations to
reduce their
emissions of greenhouse gases to specific targets. Crucially, the
Protocol
also provides for so-called "emissions trading,"
whereby nations could
offset the need for rapid cuts in their own emissions by buying
emissions
credits from other countries. But starting this trading system
would require
creating emission permits worth two trillion dollars--the largest
single
invention of assets by voluntary international treaty in world
history. Even
if it were politically possible to distribute such astronomical
sums, the
Protocol does not provide for adequate monitoring and enforcement
of these
new property rights. Nor does it offer an achievable plan for
allocating new
permits, which would be essential if the system were expanded to
include
developing countries.
The collapse of the Kyoto Protocol--which Victor views as
inevitable--will
provide the political space to rethink strategy. Better
alternatives would
focus on policies that control emissions, such as emission taxes.
Though
economically sensible, however, a pure tax approach is impossible
to monitor
in practice. Thus, the author proposes a hybrid in which
governments set
targets for both emission quantities and tax levels. This offers
the
important advantages of both emission trading and taxes without
the
debilitating drawbacks of each.
Individuals at all levels of environmental science, economics,
public
policy, and politics--from students to professionals--and anyone
else hoping
to participate in the debate over how to slow global warming will
want to
read this book.
From the Inside Flap
"Victor's keen institutional insights and
recommendations-required reading
for those aiming to get climate change negotiations back on
track-make the
book a genuine contribution to the broader literature of global
diplomacy."
(Christopher D. Stone, University of Southern California Law
School)
"The Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the Struggle to Slow
Global Warming
is interesting, thoughtful, unique, and timely. Its strength is
its ability
to integrate a wide variety of disciplines--economics, political
science,
international law, as well as the underlying science."
(William Nordhaus,
Yale University)
"David Victor's book is a rare delight and one of the finest
documents I
have seen in a very long time. It is a devastating critique of
the
international negotiations on global warming. . . . Victor's
style is clear,
easy-to-read, and incisive. It is a startlingly good volume that
should
immediately reach students of international relations, politics,
and
economics." (David Pearce, University College London)
About the Author
David G. Victor is Research Fellow for Science and Technology at
the Council
on Foreign Relations in New York. He is a regular contributor to
edited
volumes as well as to Nature, Scientific American, and other
journals.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
A Very Important Book, April 9, 2001
Reviewer: Greg Priddy (see more about me) from Arlington,
Virginia United
States
For many who favor taking action to control global warming, a
book which
points out the fatal flaws in the Kyoto Protocol is going to be
somewhat
unwelcome. However, David Victor makes a very compelling case
that the
Protocol is unworkable as negotiated. By creating an immensely
valuable new
financial asset (emissions permits) and a trading system, it
opens up
problems related to enforcement and monitoring, the protection of
property
rights under international law, the inclusion of
"illiberal" governments
with weak legal systems in the regime, and large politically
unpalatable
(and essentially unearned) transfers of wealth to Russia and
Ukraine.
How does the system deal with a government, for example, which
pockets its
payments for selling emission permits, then pulls out of the
regime when it
ceases to be profitable? How are additional countries to be
brought into the
regime without giving them the incentive of very high "worst
case" emissions
targets? How do you create an asset which is allocated based on
statistical
data which may be imperfect?
[If anything, Victor is too *optimistic* about the ability to
accurately
monitor CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. As an example of this
one needs
only to look at Chinese coal consumption data, which has fallen
by a rather
implausible amount in the last half-decade, for reasons internal
to China
having nothing to do with Kyoto. Questionable official data (and
the
possibility of intentionally skewed data) for developing
countries is a real
impediment to their future inclusion in any regime.]
Certainly many will criticize Victor's proposed
"hybrid" system, which
combines elements of emissions trading and taxation, for being
even more
complex than Kyoto's "cap and trade" system, and for
setting an absolute
ceiling for permit prices rather than for emissions, but he does
make a set
of powerful arguments in favor of such a system.
Hopefully, this book will help produce a more informed debate
about a very
complex, and immensely important, set of issues. This book is
clearly a
"must read" for anyone interested in global climate
change.
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MOERDATOR *
============================
(12) CCNet AND ITS TOPICS
From Charles Petit <cpetit@usnews.com>
Dear Benny Peiser,
I enjoy CCNet immensely (I'm a science writer and have
communicated
occasionally in the past). It is, as an advocate of your list,
that I
respectfully suggest that the postings on climate change and
greenhouse
warming skepticism are becoming too numerous. Items on
catastrophism
generally, and impacts in particular, are exceedingly
interesting, but the
debate over anthropogenic climate change appears to me to be not
only a
separate, if distantly-related topic, but is also disturbing in
its slant.
The heavy doses of skepticism and cynicism about global change in
the
postings you select may be more appropriate on a separate list,
such as the
climate change digest that David Wojick maintains. I'll keep
reading it, but
look forward to more items on stray meteors and such, and fewer
on whether
the Kyoto protocol addresses a real problem and whether, even if
it does, it
would help solve that problem.
Cordially,
Charles Petit
USNews & World Report
(510) 558 8559; fax (510) 558 3123
cpetit@usnews.com
MODERATOR'S NOTE: Dear Charles Petit, I sympathise with your
lament. I also
wish I could spend less time on this whole issue. Nevertheless,
the Global
Warming controversy has turned into one of the most heated
scientific
debates which, in any case, will have significant repercussions
for the
technological evolution and economic development of our planet in
the next
century. Despite the fact that science journalists like yourself
are
bombarded daily with apocalyptic predictions by climate
alarmists,
bureaucrats and politicians alike, I really try to limit the
coverage of
Global Warming controversies to one CCNet issue per week. I hope
that this
might serve as a consolation to those CCNet subscribers less
interested in
climate catastrophism. BJP
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