PLEASE NOTE:
*
PRESSURE ON NASA MOUNTS TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR PLANETARY
PROTECTION
>From UPI, 18 October 2002
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021017-104159-2644r
NASA eyes lasers to divert asteroids
By Dee Ann Divis
Science and Technology Editor
HOUSTON, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- Although there is only a remote chance
an asteroid
will strike Earth in the near future, the spectacular crash of
the
Shoemaker-Levy comet into the planet Jupiter in 1993 and a
razor-thin miss
between an asteroid and Earth only last year have sharpened
attention on
work NASA has been doing to prevent impacts and their devastating
results.
Even a small asteroid or comet only about 100 meters across could
cause
tremendous damage. An asteroid of [half] that size flattened
2,000 square
miles of forest in Siberia in 1908. Though there is only a
1-in-250,000
chance of impact, an asteroid roughly 1.2 kilometer across -- big
enough to
destroy a continent on impact -- is expected to pass near Earth
on Feb. 1,
2019. [Correction: The risk of impact by 2002 NT7 is zero;
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news133.html]
It was a comet that did hit -- actually a string of comet
fragments -- that
really caught the world's attention. When comet Shoemaker-Levy
struck about
10 years ago, scientists had a ring-side seat as it tore
planet-size holes
in the golden surface of Jupiter in a series of impacts --
impacts big
enough to destroy Earth.
"I think it made an impression," Jonathan Campbell, a
NASA researcher at
Marshall Space Flight Center, told United Press International.
There are roughly 1,000 to 2,000 Earth-orbiting asteroids in the
1-to-10-kilometer class -- that is, if they were a smooth ball
instead of
large lumpy rocks they would be about 1 km across. There are far
more
smaller asteroids, about 200,000 in the 100-meter class.
Campbell, whose work at NASA is part of Marshall's new National
Space
Science and Technology Center, is studying the use of lasers to
shift the
orbit of such dangerous asteroids. Carlos Roithmayr, a scientist
at NASA's
Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., also is looking at
lasers. Both
scientists have presented their projects to attendees at the
World Space
Congress.
The lasers could divert -- not destroy -- the threatening rocks,
the
scientists said. Pulses from the laser would heat an asteroid's
surface to
the point where a small part of the surface explodes. The
explosion does not
remove enough of the asteroid to render it harmless, but it does
give it a
tiny kick to one side. A long series of such little kicks would
be enough to
push an asteroid off a collision course with Earth.
Campbell suggested basing a laser either on the Moon or at one of
the
libration points -- spots in space where the gravity of Earth and
the Sun
cancel each other out and laser-carrying spacecraft could sit
relatively
motionless. Roithmayr said he envisions an option where a
laser-bearing
spacecraft would travel to asteroids and use their lasers to turn
them
aside.
Either system would require extensive advance notice, however,
because the
lasers would need to fire continuously at an asteroid for a month
or two --
at least to divert it. Such notice involves scanning the skies
constantly
with telescopes to identify and map the orbits of asteroids and
comets
zooming too near our planet.
One good place to place such telescopes would be the moon.
Roithmayr
described the Comet/Asteroid Protection System, or CAPS, which
would
include, as part of an overall protection system, a set of
telescopes, each
with apertures larger than 3 meters, placed on the moon. The
large
telescopes could be placed on tracks to allow them to be
configured more
flexibly.
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
*
CCNet TERRA 7/2002 - 18 October 2002
------------------------------------
Weather balloons have shown no warming for the past 45 years.
Satellites have shown no warming for the past 23 years. Both
methods
are infinitely more reliable than surface temperature readings.
Yet we
are about to radically reorder the culture and economies of the
developed world based on the heat island-influenced, error-prone,
inconsistent surface readings alone.
--Lorne Gunter, National Post, 17 October 2002
The ice fields of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania have given up
remarkable new information about the African climate stretching
back
more than 11,000 years... The cores show much of the past 11,000
years to have been generally wetter and warmer than present, but
they also
show evidence for three major droughts - 8,300, 5,200 and 4,000
years ago -
the last of which went on for 300 years.
--BBC News Online, 18 October 2002
So why all the fuss about the Medieval Warm Period anyway? In a
nutshell, if it can be shown that global temperatures were warmer
than they
are presently at a time when atmospheric CO2 concentrations were
much
lower than they are presently, then it is clear that something
other
than the historical rise in the air's CO2 content could be
responsible for
the global warming of the 20th century. In other words, if
non-CO2-induced
global warming has happened before, it can happen again.
--CO2 Science Magazine, 9 October 2002
(1) BLAME CITIES FOR GLOBAL WARMING
National Post, 17 October 2002
(2) KILIMANJARO ICE CORES CONFIRM GLOBAL EXTEND OF THIRD
MILLENNIUM BC
NATURAL DISASTER
BBC News Online, 18 October 2002
(3) THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD IN ASIA
CO2 Science Magazine, 9 October 2002
(4) POST-LITTLE ICE AGE HISTORIES OF FOUR ICELANDIC GLACIERS
CO2 Science Magazine, 16 October 2002
(5) CLIMATE MODEL INADEQUACIES
CO2 Science Magazine, 9 October 2002
(6) MORE REASONS TO QUESTION THE VERACITY OF THE GLOBAL SURFACE
AIR
TEMPERATURE RECORD
CO2 Science Magazine, 16 October 2002
(7) AND FINALLY: SCIENTISTS CALL FOR NUCLEAR-DRIVEN DESALINATION
OF SEA
WATER
Space Daily, 17 October 2002
=======
(1) BLAME CITIES FOR GLOBAL WARMING
>From National Post, 17 October 2002
http://www.nationalpost.com/financialpost/story.html?id={AB3475E2-B071-4EA3-BCAC-1548BC06D4CD}
Lorne Gunter
Edmonton Journal
At the end of September, Arthur DeGaetano, a Cornell University
climatologist, reported that Americans suffer 10 more hot summer
nights than
they did 40 years ago, but only "if they live in or near a
major city." In
rural areas, the average increase has been only two or three more
hot
nights.
"This means that cities and suburbs may be contributing
greatly to their own
heat problems," says DeGaetano. He won't dismiss completely
the theory that
human activities are creating a more general global warming. He
leaves room
for doubt that "greenhouse gases could be a factor, but not
the one and only
cause."
"Natural climate variability," the kind that has always
existed --
industrialization or no industrialization -- is, according to
DeGaetano,
more likely a cause.
For instance, "you tend to see higher temperatures during
periods of
drought," he says. After examining temperature trends over
the past century
from weather stations across the United States, DeGaetano
concluded areas
experiencing drought recorded higher average daily temperatures,
but that
temperatures returned to near normal values when the rains
returned.
This latter observation is inconsistent with the predictions of
the global
warming alarmists and their elaborate computer models. They hold
that the
planet's temperature is rising fairly consistently, and droughts
are
becoming more widespread and longer-lasting. That the rise is
causing the
droughts. And that without drastic curtailment of human
emission-producing
activities, the trend is irreversible.
DeGaetano found, instead, that temperature rise followed the
onset of
drought, rather than vice versa, and that temperatures tend to
fall once
droughts end.
But the most startling finding of his study, which will be
published in a
forthcoming issue of the Journal of Climate, is the vast
difference between
higher temperatures at urban and rural weather stations. "I
expected maybe a
25% increase for the urban areas compared to the rural
ones," DeGaetano
said. "I didn't expect a 300% increase."
The most likely cause of this difference is the urban heat island
effect.
Industrial, commercial and personal activity in cities makes
cities warmer
places than fields, farms and villages. Cities also give off more
of the
incoming solar radiation they absorb each day.
This effect could be behind the false impression that the globe
is warming.
More than three-quarters of weather stations in the
industrialized world are
in large urban centres. But as people have moved from farms to
cities over
the past century, in all industrialized nations, cities have
grown up around
the majority of weather stations. This advance of development
itself has, as
DeGaetano observed, caused the temperature readings in cities to
skyrocket
more than three times faster than the readings at rural stations.
And since
75% or more of weather stations have experienced this phenomenon,
it has
given overall global temperature observations (which are still
predominately
drawn from industrialized countries) the appearance of a
worldwide warming.
Miami and Los Angeles, DeGaetano found, have experienced
"exponential"
increases in temperature in the past century. New York has
experienced
almost none.
That's because 100 years ago both L.A. and Miami were small
towns. But the
weather station in New York, in Central Park, was already
surrounded by a
major city then.
If you doubt the importance of the location of weather stations,
consider
this finding from an unrelated study by University of Alabama at
Huntsville
climatologist John Christy. Christy has combed through every
temperature
reading in his state over the past 108 years and found that the
times of day
at which readings are taken at multiple locations, or the varying
methods by
which they are taken, or the reliability of the temperature
takers (many
early readings were "fudged") can make a difference of
as much as one-tenth
of a degree Celsius, per decade, statewide, in temperature
readings, or
about the same rate of "global warming" predicted by
the greenhouse
theorists.
In an earlier study, DeGaetano pointed out that establishing
temperature
trends over the past century was very difficult using surface
readings
because of the many variations from site to site in how those
temperatures
are taken. Imagine the inconsistencies in the developing world,
where
volunteers still take many readings.
Weather balloons have shown no warming for the past 45 years.
Satellites
have shown no warming for the past 23 years. Both methods are
infinitely
more reliable than surface temperature readings. Yet we are about
to
radically reorder the culture and economies of the developed
world based on
the heat island-influenced, error-prone, inconsistent surface
readings
alone.
© Copyright 2002 National Post
=============
(2) KILIMANJARO ICE CORES CONFIRM GLOBAL EXTEND OF THIRD
MILLENNIUM BC
NATURAL DISASTER
>From BBC News Online, 18 October 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2337023.stm
Kilimanjaro's ice 'archive'
The ice fields of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania have given up
remarkable new
information about the African climate stretching back more than
11,000
years.
Cores drilled into the glaciers high up on the peak support
earlier evidence
that there were three catastrophic droughts on the continent in
the
intervening period.
The research, published in the journal Science, also reinforces
predictions
made last year that rising temperatures - if they persist - could
clear the
mountain's ice completely within two decades.
This could cause difficulties for local people whose economies
depend in
part on the melt waters coming from the mountain and who also
benefit from
the influx of tourists drawn to the beauty of the white-capped
tropical
peak.
Wet and dry
Professor Lonnie Thompson, from Ohio State University, US,
collected six
cores from the mountain.
The ice columns were investigated for deposits trapped in the
yearly
snowfalls that built up the glaciers.
Its ice is an important climate archive for Africa
By checking these markers against other historical records,
Thompson and
colleagues were able to construct a climate "history
book".
Included in the record are radioactive markers related to the
fall-out of
nuclear bomb tests, which accurately date some of the ice sample;
and
specific types of oxygen and hydrogen atoms that can be used to
infer past
temperatures. Dust layers give an idea of yearly precipitation.
The cores show much of the past 11,000 years to have been
generally wetter
and warmer than present, but they also show evidence for three
major
droughts - 8,300, 5,200 and 4,000 years ago - the last of which
went on for
300 years.
Ice retreat
By using global positioning from satellites, aerial maps and an
array of
stakes placed on the ice fields, the researchers have been able
to confirm
that Kilimanjaro's white cap is retreating in extent and volume.
In February 2001, Professor Thompson said the rate of retreat
could see the
mountain completely ice free within 20 years. He said the latest
work had
not changed that assessment.
Kilimanjaro's white peak to disappear
He told the BBC: "We have a series of maps - the first made
in 1912.
"Then there was about 12.1 square kilometres of ice on the
mountain.
"Since then, there have been five maps, the latest by us
produced from
aerial photographs taken on 16 February, 2000. That showed only
2.2 sq km of
ice remained on the mountain - so we've lost about 80% of the ice
since
1912.
"If you look at the area on the maps in between you have a
series of dots
that line up.
"If you project those into the future, some time between
2015 and 2020 that
ice will be gone - along with the archive of climate history
recorded in
those glaciers."
Global changes
But colleague Dr Douglas Hardy, from the University of
Massachusetts at
Amherst, also US, cautioned against jumping to conclusions about
global
warming.
Thompson says the Furtwangler ice wall on Kilimanjaro has
undergone a
massive retreat in recent years
"Without diagnostic evidence, a definitive link to global
warming is on thin
ice," he said.
"Evidence is mounting that human influences on climate are
causing glaciers
to retreat dramatically around the world, and especially at high
elevations
in the tropics.
"But Kilimanjaro's glaciers have little in common with
mid-latitude Alpine
glaciers, and we must accept that simple explanations are not
always
possible.
"Kilimanjaro is a mountain that defies expectations and
shatters
assumptions."
Copyright 2002, BBC
=============
(3) THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD IN ASIA
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 9 October 2002
http://www.co2science.org/subject/a/summaries/asiamwp.htm
The Medieval Warm Period was a global climatic anomaly that
stretched from
the 9th through the 14th century A.D., when temperatures in many
parts of
the world regularly reached levels that were 0.5 to 1.0°C warmer
than they
are presently. The degree of warmth and associated changes in
precipitation
varied from region to region and from time to time; and,
therefore, the
consequences of the climatic anomaly were manifested in a number
of
different ways and sequences in different places. In this
particular
Medieval Warm Period Summary, we review several studies of these
climatic
expressions in proxy temperature and hydrologic data from Asia.
Using nine separate proxy climate records derived from peat, lake
sediment,
ice core, tree-ring and other proxy sources, Yang et al. (2002)
identified a
period of exceptional warmth in China between AD 800 and 1100,
much as Qian
and Zhu (2002) and Hong et al. (2000) also did. Qian and Zhu
analyzed the
thickness sequence of laminae (a measure of the hydrologic
balance of the
surrounding area) in a stalagmite found in Shihua Cave, Beijing,
and
reported finding a relatively wet period running from
approximately A.D. 940
to 1200. Hong et al. developed an even longer 6000-year
high-resolution ð18O
record from plant cellulose deposited in a peat bog in the Jilin
Province
(42° 20' N, 126° 22' E), within which they found "an
obvious warm period
represented by the high ð18O from around AD 1100 to 1200 which
may
correspond to the Medieval Warm Epoch of Europe." They also
reported that
"at that time, the northern boundary of the cultivation of
citrus tree
(Citrus reticulata Blanco) and Boehmeria nivea (a perennial
herb), both
subtropical and thermophilous plants, moved gradually into the
northern part
of China, and it has been estimated that the annual mean
temperature was
0.9-1.0°C higher than at present." Considering the
climatic conditions
required to successfully grow these plants, annual mean
temperatures in that
part of the country must have been about 1.0 °C higher than at
present, with
extreme January minimum temperatures fully 3.5 °C warmer than
they are today
(De'er, 1994).
In Russia, Demezhko and Shchapov (2001) studied a borehole
extending to more
than 5 km depth, reconstructing an 80,000-year history of ground
surface
temperature in the Middle Urals within the western rim of the
Tagil
subsidence (58°24' N, 59°44'E). The reconstructed temperature
history
revealed the existence of a number of climatic excursions,
including the
"Medieval Warm Period with a culmination about 1000 years
ago." Further
north, Hiller et al. (2001) analyzed subfossil wood samples from
the Khibiny
mountains on the Kola Peninsula of Russia (67-68°N, 33-34°E) in
an effort to
reconstruct climate change there over the past 1500 years.
Based on dating
methods used on the subfossil wood samples, they determined that
between
A.D. 1000 and 1300, the tree-line was located at least 100-140 m
above its
current elevation. This elevation advance, say the authors,
suggests that
mean summer temperatures during this "Medieval climatic
optimum" were "at
least 0.8°C higher than today," and that "the Medieval
optimum was the most
pronounced warm climate phase on the Kola Peninsula during the
last 1500
years." Additional evidence for the Medieval Warm Period in
Russia comes
from Naurzbaev and Vaganov (2000), who developed a 2200-year
proxy
temperature record (212 B.C. to 1996 A.D) using tree-ring data
obtained from
118 trees near the upper timberline in Siberia. Based on their
results, they
concluded that the warming experienced in the 20th century is
"not
extraordinary," and that "the warming at the border of
the first and second
millennia [1000 A.D., during the Medieval Warm Period] was longer
in time
and similar in amplitude."
The Medieval Warm Period has also been identified in the eastern
Mediterranean area. Schilman et al. (2001) analyzed foraminiferal
oxygen and
carbon isotopes and the physical and geochemical properties of
sediments
contained in two cores extracted from the bed of the southeastern
Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Israel, reporting a Medieval
Warm Period
centered around 1200 AD. In discussing their findings, the
authors note
there is an abundance of other evidence for the existence of the
Medieval
Warm Period in the Eastern Mediterranean, including "high
Saharan lake
levels (Schoell, 1978; Nicholson, 1980), high Dead Sea levels
(Issar et al.,
1989, 1991; Issar, 1990, 1998; Issar and Makover-Levin, 1996),
and high
levels of the Sea of Galilee (Frumkin et al., 1991; Issar and
Makover-Levin,
1996)," as well as "a precipitation maximum at the Nile
headwaters (Bell and
Menzel, 1972; Hassan, 1981; Ambrose and DeNiro, 1989) and in the
northeastern Arabian Sea (von Rad et al., 1999)."
Lastly, Esper et al., (2002) employed more than 200,000
ring-width
measurements from 384 trees obtained from 20 individual sites
ranging from
the lower to upper timberline in the Northwest Karakorum of
Pakistan
(35-37°N, 74-76°E) and the Southern Tien Shan of Kirghizia
(40°10'N,
72°35'E) to reconstruct regional patterns of climatic variations
in Western
Central Asia since AD 618. According to their record, the
Medieval Warm
Period was already firmly established and growing even warmer by
the early
7th century. Between AD 900 and 1000, tree growth was
exceptionally rapid,
at rates that they say "cannot be observed during any other
period of the
last millennium." Between AD 1000 and 1200, however, growing
conditions
deteriorated; and at about AD 1500, minimum tree ring-widths were
reached
that persisted well into the seventeenth century. Towards the end
of the
twentieth century, ring-widths increased once again; but the
authors report
that "the twentieth-century trend does not approach the AD
1000 maximum." In
fact, there is almost no comparison between the two periods, with
the
Medieval Warm Period being far more conducive to good tree growth
than the
Modern Warm Period. As the authors describe the situation,
"growing
conditions in the twentieth century exceed the long-term average,
but the
amplitude of this trend is not comparable to the conditions
around AD 1000."
So why all the fuss about the Medieval Warm Period anyway? In a
nutshell, if
it can be shown that global temperatures were warmer than they
are presently
at a time when atmospheric CO2 concentrations were much lower
than they are
presently, then it is clear that something other than the
historical rise in
the air's CO2 content could be responsible for the global warming
of the
20th century. In other words, if non-CO2-induced global warming
has happened
before, it can happen again.
In considering the results of the studies reviewed in this
Summary, it is
readily evident that a Medieval Warm Period existed throughout
vast areas of
Asia during the 9th through 14th centuries. Furthermore,
and contrary to
the climate-alarmist claim that the last decade of the 20th
century was the
warmest of the past millennium, it is clear that much of Asia was
considerably warmer during the Medieval Warm Period than it was
during any
decade of the last hundred years. Hence, it can be
appreciated that the
unprecedented warming of the past century, as climate alarmists
like to
describe it, does not even come close to meriting that
appellation,
especially in Asia.
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Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change
==========
(4) POST-LITTLE ICE AGE HISTORIES OF FOUR ICELANDIC GLACIERS
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 16 October 2002
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2002/v5n42c3.htm
Reference
Caseldine, C.J. 1985. The extent of some glaciers in northern
Iceland during
the Little Ice Age and the nature of recent deglaciation. The
Geographical
Journal 151: 215-227.
What was done
Lichenometry was used by the author to determine the dates of
occurrence of
the maximum Little Ice Age extensions of four glaciers in
Northern Iceland,
as well as their movements subsequent to that time.
What was learned
The maximum Little Ice Age extensions of the four glaciers were
reached in
1868, 1885, 1898 and 1917. Since those times, two of the glaciers
have
continued to retreat through the end of the study period
(mid-1980s). The
other two glaciers, however, have slowed, stopped and
periodically
re-advanced. One of them, in fact, advanced 50 meters between
1977 and 1979,
30 more meters between 1979 and 1981, and 25 additional meters
between 1981
and 1983. The author notes that the advances appear to occur when
mean
summer temperature drops below 8-8.5°C, which has occurred
several times
over the past several decades, following a significant downward
trend in
summer temperature that followed the broad maximum experienced
there in the
1930s and 40s.
What it means
According to conventional wisdom, the Little Ice Age held sway
over much of
the world until the end of the 19th century, after which it
rapidly waned.
The more recent advances of some of the glaciers studied by
Caseldine,
however, suggest that Iceland's climate may not have fully
evolved into what
in many parts of the world is being hailed as the Modern Warm
Period. Could
it be that climatic remnants of the Little Ice Age still lurk
about the
fringes of this North Atlantic island?
Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
============
(5) CLIMATE MODEL INADEQUACIES
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 9 October 2002
http://www.co2science.org/edit/v5_edit/v5n41edit.htm
The Earth system - comprising atmosphere, ocean, land, cryosphere
and
biosphere - is an immensely complex system, involving processes
and
interactions on a wide range of space- and time-scales. Thus
begins the
abstract of an enlightening essay on the many shortcomings of
today's
climate models (O'Neill and Steenman-Clark, 2002) in which the
implications
of this situation are discussed within the context of developing
"reliable
numerical models that can be used to predict how the Earth system
will
evolve and how it will respond to man-made
perturbations." The challenge of
this enterprise, as the authors describe it, is truly daunting.
They begin by noting that the system "must be modeled as an
interactive
whole," and that "because of the complexity of the
process and interactions
involved, high-performance computing is absolutely
essential." As they go on
to elaborate, however, today's climate models are sorely lacking
in this
"absolutely essential" characteristic, as they are also
deficient in many
other important properties, which clearly implies that even our
best climate
models are not yet up to the task required of them, i.e.,
accurately
predicting the future evolution of earth's climate.
O'Neill and Steenman-Clark note, for example, that there are
"considerable
gaps in knowledge about the interactions among the
sub-systems," and that
"current models include only a limited set of the necessary
components,"
which leads us to ask: Are we way off-base in concluding that if
today's
climate models have "gaps in knowledge" large enough to
be described as
"considerable," ought not those gaps be filled before
one puts much credence
in the predictions of the models? And what about the models
possessing a
limited set of the necessary components? Wouldn't one want
them to have all
of the necessary components before their predictions were deemed
correct?
Two examples of the coupling of subsystems that are "poorly
treated at
present," say O'Neill and Steenman-Clark, are the coupling
of changes in
atmospheric chemistry with climate and the coupling of the
biosphere with
climate. Moreover, they note that "individual
subsystems like the
atmosphere exhibit enormous complexity in their own right,"
and that "an
increase of high-performance computer power of several orders of
magnitude
is needed to make significant progress." This being
the case, we again are
forced to ask: Are we way off-base in concluding that if we need
"several
orders of magnitude more computer power" to merely make
"progress," is there
not a very real likelihood that current climate models are
nowhere near
being able to produce an accurate description of earth's future
climate?
In addition to the maddening complexity of the planet's climate
system and
the great gaps that exist in our knowledge of its workings, the
lack of
sufficiently fine spatial resolution is another enormous hurdle
that stands
in the way of accurate climate change predictions via numerical
model
calculations. With respect to the fast and dramatic climate
changes that are
thought to be linked to similar changes in the thermohaline
circulation of
the world's oceans, for example, O'Neill and Steenman-Clark say
that
"predicting rapid change reliably will require coupled
models of the
atmosphere and ocean with much finer spatial resolution than is
used at
present." An "imperative," as they thus put it, is
to bring "much greater
high-performance computer resources to bear on the problem to
allow the Gulf
Stream and related circulations to be adequately
simulated." And if that
need is truly imperative, as they say, we ask ourselves yet
again: Are we
way off-base in our belief that this need should be satisfied
before we
start turning the world's economy upside down in an effort to
forestall
model-based predictions of catastrophic global warming?
Then there is O'Neill and Steenman-Clark's statement that
"it is widely
recognized that the representation of convection, clouds and
their
interactions with radiation is one of the greatest weaknesses of
current
climate-prediction models," which is also a consequence of
insufficiently-fine spatial resolution. And what is their
prescription for
solving this problem? They say that "a major drive in
climate modeling must
be to reduce the impact of uncertain parameterizations, such as
that of
convection, by resolving important processes to a greater
extent," which
clearly requires you-know-what and which prompts us to ask yet
one more
time: Are we way off base in demanding that the models resolve
these
processes before we start letting them make our decisions for us?
Of course we're not off-base; our questions and their implied
answers are
right on the mark. The nature of the well-chosen words so aptly
employed by
O'Neill and Steenman-Clark leave no doubt about it - computer
modeling of
earth's climate, as far as it has come, still has a long, long
way to go
before it is up to the task of accurately defining future
climate. And until
it gets there, the three of us have no intention of letting an
inadequately
programmed computer usurp the responsibility we have to do our
thinking on
the vitally important issue of carbon dioxide and global
change. The stakes
are just too high.
Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso
Reference
O'Neill, A. and Steenman-Clark, L. 2002. The
computational challenges of
Earth-system science. Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society of
London, Series A 360: 1267-1275.
Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
===============
(6) MORE REASONS TO QUESTION THE VERACITY OF THE GLOBAL SURFACE
AIR
TEMPERATURE RECORD
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 16 October 2002
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2002/v5n42c1.htm
Reference
Hegerl, G.C. and Wallace, J.M. 2002. Influence of
patterns of climate
variability on the difference between satellite and surface
temperature
trends. Journal of Climate 15: 2412-2428.
Background
Over the final two decades of the 20th century, the surface air
temperature
record that is officially recognized by the Intergovernmental
Panel on
Climate Change depicts what climate alarmists call unprecedented
global
warming. Over the same period, satellite measurements of
tropospheric
temperature show little change. The difference between the two
records - a
relative surface warming on the order of 0.12°C per decade - is
significant
and cries out for explanation. The authors of this
intriguing paper attempt
to provide one.
What was done
The approach of the authors was to see if trends in recognizable
atmospheric
modes of variability account for all or part of the observed
trend in
surface-troposphere temperature differential (lapse rate), based
on
observations of surface and tropospheric temperatures obtained
from
satellites, radiosondes, and land-surface air and sea-surface
data.
What was learned
The authors say that "modes of variability that affect
surface temperature
cannot explain trends in the observed lapse rate," and that
"no mechanism
with clear spatial or time structure can be found that accounts
for that
trend." In addition, they state that "all
attempts to explain all or a
significant part of the observed lapse rate trend by modes of
climate
variability with structured patterns from observations have
failed," and
that "an approach applying model data to isolate such a
pattern has also
failed." Nor does it seem, they say, "that
interdecadal variations in
radiative forcing, such as might be caused by volcanic eruptions,
variations
in solar output, or stratospheric ozone depletion alone, offer a
compelling
explanation." Hence, they ultimately conclude
"there remains a gap in our
fundamental understanding of the processes that cause the lapse
rate to vary
on interdecadal timescales."
What it means
There are two different ways of interpreting the findings of this
study.
First, if Hegerl and Wallace's final conclusion is correct, and
there is
indeed a significant gap in our fundamental understanding of
important
meteorological and/or climatological processes related to the
lapse rate of
the lower troposphere, we are probably not justified in placing
much trust
in the predictions of climate models that do not incorporate that
fundamental knowledge. A logical extension of this interpretation
further
suggests that if state-of-the-art climate models are deficient in
this one
respect, they could well be deficient in other respects, which
would make
their predictions even more untrustworthy.
On the other hand, the reason why no explanation can be found for
the
ever-increasing difference between the surface and satellite
temperature
trends of the past 20-plus years may be that one of the
temperature records
is incorrect. Faced with this possibility, one would logically
want to
determine which of the records is likely to be erroneous and then
assess the
consequences of that determination.
Although this task may seem daunting, it is not that difficult to
make the
determination. One important clue comes from the incredibly
good
correspondence that exists between the satellite and radiosonde
temperature
trends that are portrayed in Fig. 1 of Hegerl and Wallace's
paper, which
leaves little reason for doubting the veracity of the satellite
results,
since this comparison essentially amounts to an in situ
validation of the
satellite record. A second important clue comes from the
realization that
it would be extremely easy for a spurious warming of 0.12°C per
decade to be
introduced into the surface air temperature trend as a
consequence of the
order-of-magnitude greater anthropogenic-induced
(heat-island-type) warming
that occurs in most of the places where land-surface air
temperature
measurements are made, due to increases in human population and
urban
development that occurred over the final two decades of the 20th
century
(see Urban Heat Island in our Subject Index).
We tend to favor the latter of these two perspectives, although
we realize
that both of them could well be true at one and the same
time. In either
case, there appear to be three good reasons for not believing
climate model
predictions of future, or replications of past, CO2-induced
global warming:
(1) the internal consistency of past satellite and radiosonde
temperature
measurements over areas where both were operative validates the
satellite
record of global tropospheric temperature, which shows
essentially no upward
trend over the last two decades of the 20th century, (2) the
models do not
replicate the two-decade negligible trend of the
satellite-measured
tropospheric temperature, and (3) there are good reasons for
believing the
surface air temperature trend is falsely inflated by
urban-heat-island-type
warming that is next to impossible to remove to the degree of
accuracy that
is required to confidently assess the magnitude of, or even
detect,
non-urban warming that might possibly be driven by anthropogenic
emissions
of greenhouse gases.
Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
=============
(7) AND FINALLY: SCIENTISTS CALL FOR NUCLEAR-DRIVEN DESALINATION
OF SEA
WATER
>From Space Daily, 17 October 2002
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/021017153739.slmufsah.html
MARRAKESH, Morocco (AFP) Oct 17, 2002
Experts attending an international water conference in this
southern
Moroccan city on Thursday called for the use of nuclear energy to
extract
drinking water from the sea to be made easier, as global demand
for fresh
water increases and accessibility shrinks.
"Nuclear energy provides an inexpensive, non-polluting means
of desalinating
water, and is accessible to everyone," said Abdelhamid
Mekki-Berrada, head
of the Association of Atomic Engineers of Morocco (AIGAM), which
has
co-organised the three-day meeting with the World Council of
Nuclear Workers
(WONUC).
However WONUC acknowledged that the use of nuclear energy to
desalinate
water continues to run up against the obstacle of the
anti-nuclear lobby,
which "categorically opposes anything containing the
slightest hint of
nuclear energy".
During the conference, devoted to using nuclear power to
desalinate
seawater, engineers, scientists and industrialists from 35
countries are to
present the results of studies they have carried out on removing
salt from
water using nuclear energy.
More than 97 percent of the world's water reserves are salt
water, contained
in the planet's oceans.
Only a tiny proportion of the 1.3 billion square kilometers that
makes up
the world's water reserves is fresh water, and just 0.4 percent
of those
reserves is accessible.
However, rapid economic and social development around the world
continue to
push demand for fresh water upward. Drinking water demand grew
twice as fast
as the world's population between 1990 and 1995, and is expected
to grow
another 40 percent by 2025.
According to a statement released by WONUC before the conference,
"In many
parts of the world, the discrepancy between fresh water needs and
availability has already made any possibility of development or
even
survival haphazard."
The statement also says that in 50 years, around 40 countries in
the world
could face a shortage of drinking water.
Already, "hundreds of millions of women and children are
enslaved by the
daily quest for water" in parts of the world where drinking
water is not
readily available," the statement says.
A shortage of fresh water also "limits food production,
reduces people to
destitution and poverty and leaves them with no choice but
disappearance or
exodus."
Desalination of water is, therefore, a solution "as much for
the present as
for the future of humanity," said Mekki-Berrada.
But: "Suspected of the worst by a public opinion manipulated
by the
anti-nuclear associations, industrial circles dare not propose
the use of
nuclear energy" for desalination, the WONUC statement says.
The Marrakesh meeting is backed by the World Water Council (WWC)
and the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Other participants at the conference said that nuclear
desalination now "a
realistic and viable option", in the light of the climbing
global demand for
fresh water.
Copyright 2002, Agence France-Presse
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