PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet CLIMATE SCARES & CLIMATE CHANGE, 21 November 2001
=======================================================
"The U.S. should offer its own political, social, and
economic
vision for the future-a program to reduce global poverty. What
does
that have to do with Kyoto? Plenty. To respond to any
environmental
calamity-warming or cooling, floods or droughts-nations need the
resilience that comes from a strong economy. New irrigation,
dikes,
transformed industries, can only be created with wealth. The U.S.
response to the European challenge on global warming, then,
should be to
promote economic growth in poverty-stricken nations-by far the
most
vulnerable to the dangers of any adverse change in climate....
Let the
Europeans go their own way. Their leaders preach downsizing,
small
thinking, pain, and fear. The U.S. has more in common with
aspiring
Third World peoples, who know that the key to better health and a
cleaner
environment is economic growth-exactly what the grandees of Kyoto
disdain."
--James K. Glassman, Host, Tech Central Station
"It's hard to understand how parts of the Northern
Hemisphere might
have cooled to the magnitude suggested, but not North America.
That
seems to imply that either the paleo- records are being
misinterpreted, or
something else went on, something major that is not being
accounted for.
This isn't necessarily the end of the story."
--David Rind, Goddard Institute for Space Studies
(1) GLOBAL WARMING MORE COMMON THAN THOUGHT
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(2) COMPUTER SCARE: OCEAN CIRCULATION MAY (OR MAY NOT) HAVE SHUT
DOWN BY
MELTING GLACIERS
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(3) SCIENCE PANEL SAYS: GLOBAL WARMING, A FICTION SPURRED BY
POLITICS
Tech Central Station, 16 November 2001
(4) PLAN CALLS FOR USING OCEANS TO SOAK UP CO2; CRITICS CITE
PERILS
The New York Times, 20 November 2001
(5) HAS CO2-INDUCED GLOBAL WARMING BEEN WRONGLY ACCUSED OF
DECIMATING
CLOUD-FOREST ECOSYSTEMS?
CO2 Science Magazine, 21 November 2001
(6) BREAKUP OF SMALL ANTARCTIC ICE SHELVES IS NOT EVIDENCE OF
ANTHROPOGENIC
CLIMATE CHANGE
CO2 Science Magazine, 14 November 2001
(7) UNCERTAINTIES IN ANTHROPOGENIC RADIATIVE FORCING OF CLIMATE
CO2 Science Magazine, 14 November 2001
(8) CLOUD COVER & GLOBAL WARMING
CO2 Science Magazine, 14 November 2001
(9) WHY WE ALL LOVE WALLY BROECKER
CO2 Science Magazine, 14 November 2001
(10) OPINION: AN AMERICAN ALTERNATIVE TO ENVIRO-GLOOM: REDUCE
GLOBAL POVERTY
Tech Central Station, 14 November 2001
====================
(1) GLOBAL WARMING MORE COMMON THAN THOUGHT
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
NEWS SERVICES
210 Pittsboro Street, Campus Box 6210
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-6210
(919) 962-2091 FAX: (919) 962-2279
www.unc.edu/news/newsserv
News Services Contact:
David Williamson, (919) 962-8596
For immediate use: Nov. 16, 2001
No. 594
Global warming more common than thought, deep-sea drilling off
Japan now
demonstrates
By DAVID WILLIAMSON, UNC News Services
CHAPEL HILL -- Core samples from a deep-sea drilling expedition
in the
western Pacific clearly show multiple episodes of warming that
date back as
far as 135 million years, according to one of the project's lead
scientists.
Analysis of the samples indicates warming events on Earth were
more common
than researchers previously believed.
The expedition aboard the scientific drill ship "JOIDES
Resolution," which
ended in late October, also revealed that vast areas of the
Pacific Ocean
were low in oxygen for periods of up to a million years each,
said Dr.
Timothy Bralower. A marine geologist, Bralower is professor and
chair of
geological sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill.
"These ocean-wide anoxic events were some of the most
radical environmental
changes experienced by Earth in the last several hundred million
years," he
said.
Along with Dr. Isabella Premoli-Silva, a micropaleontologist and
stratigrapher at the University of Milan, Bralower served as
co-chief of the
two-month expedition. Drilling took place on Shatsky Rise, an
underwater
plateau more than 1,000 miles east of Japan. Its purpose was to
better
document and understand past global warming.
In geologic time, episodes of warming began almost
instantaneously -- over a
span of about a thousand years, Bralower said.
"Warming bursts may have been triggered by large volcanic
eruptions or
submarine landslides that released carbon dioxide and methane,
both
greenhouse gases," he said. "Besides reducing the
ocean's oxygen-carrying
capacity, warming also increased the water's corrosive
characteristics and
dissolved shells of surface-dwelling organisms before they could
settle to
the bottom."
In some especially striking layers of black, carbon-rich mud,
only the
remains of algae and bacteria were left, he said.
"The sheer number of cores that reveal the critical warming
events found on
this expedition -- three from the 125-million-year event and 10
for the
55-million-year Paleocene event -- exceeds the number of cores
recovered for
these time intervals by all previous ocean drilling expeditions
combined,"
Bralower said.
"This means that we will be able to reconstruct in far
better detail the
nature of environmental changes that took place back then than
was
previously possible," he said. "We'll also have a
better chance of
determining the cause. Already we've seen signs in the sediments
for other
undetected periods of warming, which suggests that they were much
more
frequent than geologists have thought."
Among periods of warmth likely caused by methane was one
occurring about 55
million years ago, the geologist said. Cores show that
200,000-year-long
event killed off 30 percent to 50 percent of deep ocean life
while
stimulating evolution of new species near the surface.
Twenty-seven scientists from seven countries and 62 crew spent 35
days above
Shatsky Rise on the expedition, which is expected to boost
understanding of
current global warming, he said.
The Ocean Drilling Program is an international partnership of
scientists and
research institutions organized to study the evolution and
structure of the
Earth. ODP is funded principally by the National Science
Foundation, with
contributions from its international partners.
A consortium of 16 U.S. academic institutions known as the Joint
Oceanographic Institutions manages the program. Texas A&M
University
oversees science operations.
Note: Bralower can be reached at (919) 962-0704 or bralower@email.unc.edu .
Photos showing life aboard the drill ship during the expedition
are
available on the web at
http://www-odp.tamu.edu/public/life/leg198.html
==============
(2) COMPUTER SCARE: OCEAN CIRCULATION MAY (OR MAY NOT) HAVE SHUT
DOWN BY
MELTING GLACIERS
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
Lynn Chandler
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt,
Md. November 29, 2001
Lynn.Chandler.1@gsfc.nasa.gov
Phone: (301) 286-2806
Cheryl Dybas
National Science Foundation, Arlington, Va.
cdybas@nsf.gov
Phone: (703) 292-8070
Release No. 01-102
Ocean Circulation Shut Down by Melting Glaciers After Last Ice
Age
At the end of the last Ice Age 13 to 11.5 thousand years ago, the
North
Atlantic Deep Water circulation system that drives the Gulf
Stream may have
shut down because of melting glaciers that added freshwater into
the North
Atlantic Ocean over several hundred years, NASA and university
researchers
confirm. Since the Gulf Stream brings warm tropical waters north,
Western
Europe cooled.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded study also finds
that if a
shutdown persisted for a long enough time, the entire Northern
Hemisphere
would eventually cool.
The computer model simulations of ocean and atmosphere processes
used in
this study imply a similar phenomenon has the potential to occur
in the
future due to freshwater additions from increased rain and snow
caused by
global climate change.
"For the first time, it is shown that realistic additions of
glacial
meltwater into the North Atlantic would have shutdown North
Atlantic Deep
Water production over a period of a few hundred years if the
initial ocean
circulation was somewhat weaker than that of today," said
David Rind, lead
author of the study and a senior climate researcher at NASA's
Goddard
Institute for Space Studies in New York, NY. The study appears in
the
November 16 issue of Journal of Geophysical Research -
Atmospheres.
When Rind and his colleagues entered realistic estimates of
freshwater from
melting glaciers into their model, they found the North Atlantic
circulation
stopped completely after some 300 years. When the model was
adjusted to make
the circulation weaker than it is today, cessation of the Gulf
Stream took
only 150-200 years, matching current estimates based on
paleo-climate
records .
Freshwater additions into the ocean through the St. Lawrence
River have a
profound effect on the ocean circulation. "The more
freshwater you add, and
the longer you add it, the greater reduction in the North
Atlantic
circulation," Rind said. "According to our model, this
is a linear
response."
When the Gulf Stream moves warm surface water from the equator
north through
the Atlantic, the water cools, gets saltier due to evaporation
and becomes
very dense. By the time it approaches the coast of Newfoundland,
or further
northeast in the Norwegian Sea, it becomes dense enough to sink.
This
process is called overturning. The dense water then slowly
travels through
the deep water southward into the Southern Hemisphere, with the
return flow
to the north occurring at the surface.
But when freshwater gets mixed with the salty water in the North
Atlantic,
it makes the water less dense and slows the overturning process
and the
ocean circulation.
While the study finds that freshwater input could slow and stop
overturning,
this would not stop the Gulf Stream entirely. That's because the
stream is
partially pushed by winds. As a result, the model shows the
reduced Gulf
Stream would only transport about half as much heat northward,
thereby
cooling Western Europe. Were this to occur in a global warming
scenario, it
would act to partly counter the effects of projected greenhouse
warming in
parts of Western Europe.
Many scientists suspect more rainfall in parts of the Northern
Hemisphere
during this century as a result of greenhouse warming. That's
because warmer
temperatures increase the atmosphere's capacity to carry water.
"The North
Atlantic circulation may already be weakening due to freshwater
rainfall
additions associated with global warming," Rind said.
But the model shows a number of inconsistencies with previous
studies on the
last ice age. Those studies speculate that once freshwater
stopped flowing,
the ocean circulation would return within only a few decades,
matching a
rapid warming seen in the climate record. The model finds that
deepwater
circulation does not return for at least hundreds of years when
the
freshwater additions end. Also contrary to observations, the
model showed
cooling throughout the Northern Hemisphere; during the last ice
age, the majority
of the United States land mass did not appear to cool.
"It's hard to understand how parts of the Northern
Hemisphere might have
cooled to the magnitude suggested, but not North America,"
Rind said. "That
seems to imply that either the paleo-records are being
misinterpreted, or
something else went on, something major that is not being
accounted for.
This isn't necessarily the end of the story."
For more information, please see:
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011116meltwater.html
=============
(3) SCIENCE PANEL SAYS: GLOBAL WARMING, A FICTION SPURRED BY
POLITICS
>From Tech Central Station, 16 November 2001
http://www.techcentralstation.com/NewsDesk.asp?FormMode=PolicyTracksArticles&ID=140
By Duane D. Freese, TCS Columnist
Human burning of fossil fuels isn't the primary culprit of global
warming.
So said a group of four eminent scientists speaking to
representatives from
congressional offices, the Bush administration, think tanks and
interested
industries Thursday. Moreover, the level of such warming is not
now
alarming.
At a Frontiers of Freedom Forum conference called "Global
Warming: Sound
Science or Science Fiction?" held at the Heritage
Foundation, Astrophysicist
Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics, John
Christy of the Earth System Center at the University of Alabama
at
Huntsville, Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia and
German
meteorologist Gerd Weber concluded that the big problem with
global warming
is the politics being played with the issue.
"The Earth's surface has warmed a bit," said Dr.
Christy, who was awarded
NASA's Medal of Exceptional Scientific Achievement for his work
helping
develop the global temperature data sets from satellites.
"But in a way
inconsistent with catastrophe," he added.
Christy is a lead author of the chapter about troposphere
temperatures in
the United Nation's reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate
Change. He noted that temperatures in the troposphere above the
surface
layer aren't warming, even though they are supposed to according
to theories
of human induced warming.
"Climate always changes," Christy said. But the weather
people care about -
tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, droughts - has not changed for the
worse in
recent decades.
Moreover, proponents of such accords as the Kyoto Protocol, which
would
require substantial reductions in human emissions of carbon
dioxide (CO2),
are essentially asking people to:
* Pay 1.3 percent of their income for no tangible result
* Tax themselves based on weather forecasts for 100 years in the
future
* Control something (CO2) that is not a pollutant, but helps
things grow
* Surrender sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats from other
countries
* Reduce access to energy, disproportionately hurting the poor
"Access to energy means longer and better lives for
everyone," Christy said.
Dr. Michaels, who is state climatologist for Virginia and was
program chair
for the American Meteorological Society's Committee on Applied
Climatology,
took Christy's point further.
He noted that claims found in the reports of the UN IPCC that
global warming
would lead to a doubling of heat-related deaths had it backwards.
That
report was based upon a selective review of heat related deaths
in some
North American cities. A further review of that data, though,
shows that
heat-related deaths in those cities have declined, he said. And
not only
have deaths declined, but the difference in heat-related death
rates for
temperatures between 80 and as high as 100 degrees Fahrenheit
have
disappeared.
What's happened, Michael said, is that use of energy for air
conditioning
has helped virtually eliminate heat related death. Raising the
price of
energy, as would be required to meet emissions reduction goals in
the Kyoto
protocol, would likely increase heat related deaths, he said.
Michaels also criticized the media for sensationalizing coverage
about the
Tuvalu tribe, which announced at Marrakech that it was leaving
the islands
in Micronesia where they live because of rising sea levels, which
they
blamed on global warming. Scientific studies of sea levels for
their
islands, Michaels noted, show sea levels have gone down over the
past 50
years. " What happened was they wrecked their islands; they
mined their sand
to build buildings," he said.
Dr. Baliunas, who hosts Tech Central Station's Science for the
Earth and is
deputy director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, pointed to
another
distortion in the record in IPCC reports of temperatures. Those
reports, she
told audience members, show graphs with a trend line depicting a
steady rise
in troposphere temperatures of about 0.1 degree Celsius (0.18
degree F) over
the past 44 years based upon balloon station measurements and,
from 1978,
confirming satellite data.
The only problem with such graphing is that it covers up a
natural
temperature change - the Pacific Climate Shift - that occurs
every quarter
century or so, she said. The temperature trend line before that
shift was
actually flat as was the trend line afterward, Baliunas noted.
She pointed out that the physics of climate change, if CO2 were
the cause,
would show increases in the troposphere temperatures. "But
there has been no
demonstration of human-made warming in the last 50 years,"
she said.
If such CO2 warming is occurring, Baliunas said, "the good
news is ... it is
slow." That means there is no reason to drastically cutback
fossil fuel use
in ways that would disrupt the economy, she said.
In the meantime, she is studying the effect of energy changes
from the sun
that show a high correlation to the change in surface temperature
over
several centuries.
Dr. Weber, who is the author of "Global Warming, the Rest of
the Story,"
emphasized that the forecasts from global climate models that the
UN has
relied on for its forecast of future temperatures are based upon
increases
in human induced greenhouse gases that occur at double the
observed rates.
Further, he noted that most of the surface warming that has
occurred and
which is forecast in the future would occur at night in cold, dry
climates
such as Siberia.
When asked why European countries are so adamant in their pursuit
of
cutbacks in greenhouse gases despite the lack of evidence of
future
catastrophe, Weber said: "They are just crazy in Europe.
They are mostly
Socialists"
He told the story of a conversation he had with a European Union
politician,
saying the politician told him:
"I as a politician don't care if global temperatures are
increasing or that
carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning is causing it. What, to
me, is
important, is that the public believes it. If the public believes
two and
two is five, then I will say it is five. I will do what they
believe," he
said.
Copyright 2001, TechCentral Station
============
(4) PLAN CALLS FOR USING OCEANS TO SOAK UP CO2; CRITICS CITE
PERILS
>From The New York Times, 20 November 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/20/science/earth/20CARB.html
By KENNETH CHANG
In the continuing debate over global warming and how to fight it,
some
scientists and entrepreneurs advocate using the oceans as a
sponge to absorb
carbon dioxide from the air.
Others are saying not so fast. They argue that widespread ocean
dumping of
carbon dioxide could unbalance the aquatic environment.
Carbon dioxide is one of the "greenhouse gases" that
trap heat. Most
scientists believe that carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil
fuels is a
large factor in the warming temperatures of the last century and
that
capping those emissions is essential for limiting future warming.
Much of the extra carbon dioxide already dissolves into the
oceans, where it
has no effect on temperatures. Two schemes seek to augment that
natural
process.
One is to catch carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of power
plants before
it enters the atmosphere, squeeze it into liquid form and then
pump it into
the deep oceans.
The other is to fertilize oceans to produce blooms of algae that
pull carbon
dioxide out of the air. Proponents believe that as the bloom dies
off, much
of the algae will sink to the ocean floor, and the carbon dioxide
-
transformed into plant material - would be safely subtracted from
the
warming equation. A private company called GreenSea Venture hopes
to make a
business of this.
But some scientists argue that engineering nature to avoid
environmental
damage inevitably causes other, perhaps greater damage.
Writing in the Oct. 12 issue of Science, Dr. Brad A. Seibel of
the Monterey
Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, Calif., and Dr.
Patrick J.
Walsh of the University of Miami caution that carbon dioxide
could harm
deep-sea creatures.
Enshrouded in perpetual cold and dark, these creatures like the
anglerfish
live in slow motion, their metabolisms consuming energy at as
little as
one-thousandth the rate of those closer to the surface. The slow
metabolism
makes them particularly sensitive to chemical changes in their
environment,
the authors say.
When carbon dioxide dissolves, it turns into carbonic acid,
making the water
more acidic. But biologists have observed that a change of 0.3 in
the pH
level in the blood of some deep sea creatures can halve the
amount of
oxygen. "It may not kill them," Dr. Seibel said,
"but they may not be able
to swim as actively as they could be before. It'd be like they
were out of
breath."
Damage to deep-ocean ecosystems could eventually alter the mix of
nutrients
and chemicals that well up from the depths. "It's still not
known what the
links between the deep ocean and the shallow ocean are," Dr.
Seibel said.
"If you damage one, you hurt the other potentially."
A small-scale experiment to pump about 40 tons of liquid carbon
dioxide into
the waters off Hawaii has run into stiff opposition from some
environmentalists and has not received final approval.
Carbon dioxide does kill, as researchers demonstrated in even
smaller-scale
experiments this year in Monterey Bay.
>From a small submarine, the scientists, from the Monterey Bay
Research
Institute, squirted about five gallons of liquid carbon dioxide
into each of
several small plastic pools at the bottom, 12,000 feet down. They
then put
cages containing five sea urchins and five sea cucumbers each
about a foot
and a half from the carbon dioxide pools, wanting to see how they
fared
compared with others in cages farther away.
When they returned three weeks later, everything in the cages
next to the
pools was dead. The researchers found that creatures like small
crustaceans
living in the nearby sediment were also injured or killed.
Modifying the
experiment, the researchers then placed sea urchins and sea
cucumbers 6 and
15 feet away from the carbon dioxide. Those animals survived
without visible
injury; tissue samples are being examined for cellular damage.
"It seems CO2 injection will have detrimental effects,"
said Dr. James P.
Barry, an associate scientist at the institute involved in the
experiment.
"That's almost certain. The degree of damage is the
question."
These cautionary notes contrast with the views of Dr. Peter G.
Brewer, a
senior scientist at the research institute, who supervised the
bay bottom
experiments and has advocated exploring the idea of injecting
carbon dioxide
in the ocean. Still, he said the data deserved a full airing.
"Just as putting in a sewage outfall or drilling an oil
well, there's an
environmental question to be asked," Dr. Brewer said,
"and people should do
it in an objective way."
In a second Science article on Oct. 12, three scientists - Dr.
Sallie W.
Chisholm of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Paul
G. Falkowski
of Rutgers University and Dr. John J. Cullen of Dalhousie
University in
Halifax, Nova Scotia - strongly criticize the idea of fertilizing
to counter
global warming.
Some parts of the oceans, primarily in the Southern Hemisphere,
are full of
nutrients, but sparse in sea life because of a lack of iron.
Several small
experiments have shown that dumping iron into these waters
produces large
blooms of algae.
Proponents like Dr. Michael Markels, who founded GreenSea
Venture, say the
proposal simply mimics a natural process, in which iron-rich dust
and
volcanic ash blow from land to water. "It would be minuscule
in comparison
to what happens naturally," Dr. Markels said.
But Dr. Chisholm contends that it is difficult to measure how
much carbon
sinks and that the algae blooms could suck oxygen out of the
water, chasing
away fish and that a profit motive would lead to reckless
overfertilization.
"It's like saying: `What's so bad to adding carbon dioxide
to the
atmosphere? There's already CO2 in the atmosphere," she
said.
The GreenSea approach has not yet received widespread support,
with the
Department of Energy turning down its grant proposals.
GreenSea's business plan also depends on the selling of
"carbon credits"
proposed under the Kyoto treaty on global warming. The Bush
administration
has rejected the Kyoto treaty and has also objected to the
concept of carbon
credits.
Copyright 2001, The New York Times
===============
(5) HAS CO2-INDUCED GLOBAL WARMING BEEN WRONGLY ACCUSED OF
DECIMATING
CLOUD-FOREST ECOSYSTEMS?
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 21 November 2001
http://www.co2science.org/edit/v4_edit/v4n47edit.htm
In the 15 April 1999 issue of Nature, two groups of scientists -
Still et
al. (1999) and Pounds et al. (1999) - published a pair of papers
dealing
with an extremely complex subject: the cause of major decreases
in frog and
toad populations in the highland forests of Monteverde, Costa
Rica. These
diebacks (in which 20 of 50 local species totally disappeared)
had occurred
over the preceding two decades, decades that climate alarmists
describe as
having experienced "unprecedented warming."
The frog and toad declines had also been accompanied by changes
in bird and
lizard populations that made the composition of the cloud-forest
fauna look
a lot more like that of forests further downslope; and the
ecological
mystery surrounding these changes captured the attention of a
large sector
of a public already conditioned to hearing all sorts of bad
things
attributed to the rising CO2 content of earth's atmosphere.
Thus it was
perhaps only to be expected that in a popular article describing
the
mystery's putative solution, Holmes (1999) noted that the authors
of the
Science reports made "a convincing case blaming global
climate change for
these ecological events," which, of course, they truly did.
Here's how the theory developed. Still et al. ran a global
climate model
simulation for a doubled atmospheric CO2 concentration, finding -
after what
Holmes says "might seem like a lot of hand waving" -
that the absolute
humidity required to create and maintain the clouds that
periodically shroud
the Monteverde mountain tops shifted upwards in response to this
perturbation (CO2-induced global warming, which was supposedly
manifest in
increasing sea surface temperatures), especially during the
winter dry
season when the forests there rely most heavily on the moisture
they receive
directly from the clouds. At the same time, the climate
modelers noted an
increase in a parameter they termed the "warmth index,"
which change implied
a greater concurrent demand for evapotranspiration; and it was
the
combination of these two changes, i.e., an implied reduction in
the amount
of cloud contact with the mountain-top forest and the forest's
increased
need for water, that led the modelers to believe that (presumed)
CO2-induced
global warming was indeed the culprit behind the observed change
in
environmental conditions (essentially more dry days) that were
believed to
be responsible for the changes in animal life documented by
Pounds et al.
At the time of the publication of the two Nature papers, and for
a year or
more thereafter, the explanation put forth by the two groups of
scientists
looked pretty strong. In fact, to many it was
compelling. Now, however,
comes the study of Lawton et al. (2001) that suggests something
quite
different, in which the authors present what they call "an
alternative
mechanism - upwind deforestation of lowlands - that may increase
convective
and orographic cloud bases even more than changes in sea surface
temperature
do."
Lawton et al. begin by noting that the trade winds that reach the
Monteverde
cloud-forest ecosystem flow across approximately 100 km of the
lowlands of
the Rio San Juan basin, and that deforestation proceeded rapidly
in the
Costa Rican part of this basin over the past century. By
1992, in fact,
only 18% of the original lowland forest remained. The
authors note that
this conversion of forest to pasture and farm land significantly
alters the
properties of the air flowing across the landscape. The
reduced
evapotranspiration that follows deforestation, for example,
decreases the
moisture content of the air mass; and regional atmospheric model
simulations
suggest (quite logically) that there should be reduced cloud
formation and
higher cloud bases over such deforested areas, which would also
cause there
to be fewer and higher-based clouds than there would otherwise be
when the
surface-modified air moves into the higher Monteverde region.
At this point, we thus have two theories from which to choose a
candidate
mechanism for the environmental changes that have altered the
Monteverde
cloud-forest ecosystem: one that is global (CO2-induced warming)
and one
that is local (upwind lowland deforestation). So how does
one pick the
winner?
Lawton et al. chose an approach that pretty much proves their
case. Noting
that the lowland forests north of the San Juan River in
southeastern
Nicaragua remain largely intact - providing a striking contrast
to the
mostly-deforested lands in neighboring Costa Rica - they used
Landsat and
Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite imagery to show
that
"deforested areas of Costa Rica's Caribbean lowlands remain
relatively
cloud-free when forested regions have well-developed dry season
cumulus
cloud fields," noting further that the prominent zone of
reduced cumulus
cloudiness in Costa Rica "lies directly upwind of the
Monteverde tropical
montane cloud forest." Hence, they demonstrated by
direct observation that
the effects predicted by the theory they developed did indeed
occur in the
real world, and that they occurred right alongside a
"control" area that was
identical in all respects but for the perturbation
(deforestation) that
produced the effects.
What is the take-home message of this intriguing story?
First of all,
CO2-induced global warming does not appear to be the cause of the
disruptions observed to be occurring in the Monteverde
cloud-forest
ecosystem by Pounds et al. Second, the reality of the
climate alarmists'
"unprecedented" global warming of the past two decades
is called into
question; for where there is no upwind lowland deforestation,
there are no
corresponding changes in cloud properties of the type predicted
by Still et
al. to result from rising temperatures.
Most important of all, perhaps, is the demonstration of how
dangerous it can
sometimes be to follow the environmentalist dictum to "think
globally but
act locally." In the case of the Monteverde
cloud-forest ecosystem, for
example, global thinking likely identified the wrong cause of the
observed
problem. Man was to blame for the ecosystem perturbations,
all right, but
not in the way suggested by the climate alarmists; and if the
original
analysis had stood, effective ameliorative actions would likely
never have
been identified.
Similar global thinking may also be stalling effective local
actions that
could be taken to solve a number of other important environmental
problems.
One that stands out in our minds is the preservation of the
planet's
threatened coral reefs, which are suffering from a whole host of
vexing
anthropogenic stresses (see our Editorials of 12 and 19 September
2001).
Proponents of the Kyoto Protocol, however, have got everyone so
fixated on
the deleterious consequences that global warming is predicted to
have on
these species-rich ecosystems that we are slow to fund and
implement
well-defined site-specific programs that could dramatically
improve their
health. And while these and many other forms of life - both
aquatic and
terrestrial - enter upon what could well be preventable pathways
to
extinction (knowing we have the means to help them avoid that
end), we
contemplate the spending of untold amounts of money to fight an
unnecessary
and unwinable battle against a friend (rising atmospheric CO2
concentrations) we will likely sorely need to provide the food
and water
both we and the rest of the biosphere will require in the years
ahead (see
our Editorials of 15 November 2000 and 21 February, 2 May and 13
June 2001).
Where, oh where, has reason fled?
Dr. Sherwood B. Idso
Dr. Keith E. Idso
References
Holmes, R. 1999. Heads in the clouds. New Scientist (8 May):
32-36.
Lawton, R.O., Nair, U.S., Pielke Sr., R.A. and Welch, R.M. 2001.
Climatic
impact of tropical lowland deforestation on nearby montane cloud
forests.
Science 294: 584-587.
Pounds, J.A., Fogden, M.P.L. and Campbell, J.H. 1999. Biological
response to
climate change on a tropical mountain. Nature 398: 611-615.
Still, C.J., Foster, P.N. and Schneider, S.H. 1999.
Simulating the effects
of climate change on tropical montane cloud forests. Nature
398: 608-610.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
===========
(6) BREAKUP OF SMALL ANTARCTIC ICE SHELVES IS NOT EVIDENCE OF
ANTHROPOGENIC
CLIMATE CHANGE
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 14 November 2001
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n46c2.htm
Reference
Pudsey, C.J. and Evans, J. 2001. First survey of Antarctic
sub-ice shelf
sediments reveals mid-Holocene ice shelf retreat. Geology 29:
787-790.
Background
Five small Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves have been retreating
during the
period of historical observations, i.e., since about 1843.
This retreat
intensified in the late 1980s, and was followed by the breakout
of two of
them (Larsen-A and Prince Gustav Channel) in 1995. The
current study was
conducted in an attempt to determine the uniqueness of these
phenomena.
What was done
The authors studied ice-rafted debris obtained from four cores in
Prince
Gustav Channel, which was formally (until 1995) covered by
floating ice
shelves.
What was learned
It was determined that the Prince Gustav Channel ice shelf also
retreated in
mid-Holocene time, but that, in the words of the authors,
"colder conditions
after about 1.9 ka allowed the ice shelf to reform."
What it means
Although the authors conclude that the ice shelves in question
are sensitive
indicators of regional climate change, they are careful to point
out that
"we should not view the recent decay as an unequivocal
indicator of
anthropogenic climate change." The disappearance of
the ice shelves is not
unique; it's happened before without our help, and it could well
have
happened again on its own. In fact, the breakup of the
Prince Gustav
Channel ice shelf could be nothing more than the natural
culmination of one
aspect of the Antarctic Peninsula's recovery from Little Ice
Age-like
conditions, as similar phenomena have been observed in many
places
throughout the Northern Hemisphere and other parts of the
Southern
Hemisphere as well (see Little Ice Age in our Subject Index).
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
==============
(7) UNCERTAINTIES IN ANTHROPOGENIC RADIATIVE FORCING OF CLIMATE
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 14 November 2001
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n46c1.htm
Reference
Ghan, S.J., Easter, R.C., Chapman, E.G., Abdul-Razzak, H., Zhang,
Y., Leung,
L.R., Laulainen, N.S., Saylor, R.D. and Zaveri, R.A. 2001. A
physically
based estimate of radiative forcing by anthropogenic sulfate
aerosol.
Journal of Geophysical Research 106: 5279-5293.
Background
In setting the stage for their study, the authors state that
"present-day
radiative forcing by anthropogenic greenhouse gases is estimated
to be 2.1
to 2.8 Wm-2; the direct forcing by anthropogenic aerosols is
estimated to be
-0.3 to -1.5 Wm-2, while the indirect forcing by anthropogenic
aerosols is
estimated to be 0 to -1.5 Wm-2," so that "estimates of
the total global mean
present-day anthropogenic forcing range from 3 Wm-2 to -1
Wm-2." Now let's
see, that would be somewhere between a warming and a cooling,
right? And
that would seem to be rather shaky justification for the
worldwide
institution of draconian measures to fight potential global
warming, which
could well turn out to be potential global cooling, right?
Right; for as
the authors themselves say, "clearly" - and we love
that word clearly, for
it is obviously most appropriate - "clearly, the great
uncertainty in the
radiative forcing must be reduced if the observed climate record
is to be
reconciled with model predictions and if estimates of future
climate change
are to be useful in formulating emission policies."
Doing so, however,
will, as they say, "require profound reductions in the
uncertainties of
direct and indirect forcing by anthropogenic aerosol," which
is what they
thus set out to do, i.e., reduce the uncertainties.
What was done
In the words of the authors, they employed a strategy that
consisted of "a
combination of process studies designed to improve understanding
of the key
processes involved in the forcing, closure experiments designed
to evaluate
that understanding, and integrated models that treat all of the
necessary
processes together and estimate the forcing." For more
details - and
there's lots of them - we recommend direct consultation of their
paper.
What was learned
At the end of their laborious investigation, Ghan et al. come up
with some
numbers that considerably reduce the range of uncertainty in the
"total
global mean present-day anthropogenic forcing," but it still
stretches from
a small cooling influence to a modest impetus for warming.
Hence, they
present a long list of other things that must be done in order to
obtain a
more definitive result, after which they acknowledge that
"this list is
hardly complete." Indeed, they conclude their
treatment of the topic by
saying "one could easily add the usual list of uncertainties
in the
representation of clouds, etc."
What it means
The bottom line, in the words of the authors, is that "much
remains to be
done before the estimates are reliable enough to base energy
policy
decisions upon," to which we can only say "Amen!"
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
==========
(8) CLOUD COVER & GLOBAL WARMING
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 14 November 2001
http://www.co2science.org/subject/c/summaries/cloudcover.htm
Understanding how earth's clouds respond to anthropogenic-induced
perturbations of the atmosphere is of paramount importance in
determining
the impact of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content on global
climate.
As Charlson et al. (2001) have noted, "man-made aerosols
have a strong
influence on cloud albedo, with a global mean forcing estimated
to be of the
same order (but opposite in sign) as that of greenhouse
gases." Hence, we
here present a brief review of a number of scientific papers that
address
this crucial issue.
Ferek et al. (1998) determined that cloud condensation nuclei in
the
airborne effluents of ships off the west coast of the United
States were
responsible for producing ship tracks, i.e., brighter and more
persistent
streaks, in the overlying layer of natural and less-reflective
cloud, both
of which alterations create a cooling influence during daylight
hours.
Based on what is known of the properties of the aerosols
responsible for jet
aircraft contrails, Meerkotter et al. (1999) came to a similar
conclusion,
although aircraft-induced increases in high-level cirrus clouds
are
typically thought to elevate near-surface air temperature
(Boucher, 1999),
as the warming effect of their greenhouse properties is believed
to
predominate over the cooling effect of their solar
radiation-reflecting
properties. Nakanishi et al. (2001), for example, suggest
that
aircraft-induced increases in high-cloud amount in the interior
of central
Alaska may be largely responsible for the region's recent warming
trend,
lifting some of the burden typically laid on the shoulders of CO2
in such
instances.
Although various of man's impacts on clouds can thus both heat
and cool the
planet, Charlson et al. (2001) note that the net effect of all
anthropogenic-produced aerosols averaged over the entire world is
one of
cooling. Furthermore, they conclude that its estimated
strength - which
they say is generally believed to be equivalent to the strength
of the
warming effect of all anthropogenic-produced greenhouse gases -
may be too
conservative. With respect to the first of these phenomena,
for example,
they report that recent studies indicate "both the forcing
and its magnitude
may be even larger than anticipated." What is more,
they say current IPCC
estimates of future climate change "do not include the
combined influences
of some recently identified chemical factors, each of which leads
to
additional negative forcing (cooling) on top of that currently
estimated,"
as we note in our Editorial of 1 August 2001. Consequently,
any new
findings in this field of research are of great significance, as
they may
hold the key to determining whether warming or cooling will
ultimately
result from the sum total of human activities.
In pursuit of this objective, i.e., a proper understanding of
man's many
impacts on earth's climate, Facchini et al. (1999) studied the
effects of
atmospheric solutes collected from cloud water in the Po Valley
of Italy,
finding that water vapor was more likely to form on its
organic-solute-affected aerosols of lower surface tension - as
opposed to
the less-organic-solute-affected aerosols of the natural
environment with
their higher surface tension - creating more and smaller (and,
therefore,
more-highly-reflective) cloud droplets, which, of course, tend to
cool the
local environment. They also observed that the organic
fractions and
concentrations of the aerosols they studied were similar to those
found in
air downwind of other large agricultural/industrial regions,
hinting at the
likely widespread occurrence of this human-induced cooling
influence.
In studying this phenomenon several years earlier, Kulmala et al.
(1993)
additionally noted "it is likely that the smaller droplet
size will decrease
precipitation so that the clouds will have a longer
lifetime." In addition,
their observation that "cloud formation can take place at
smaller saturation
ratios of water vapor" in the presence of
organic-solute-affected aerosols
suggests that clouds will be able to form at earlier times and in
places
where they would not otherwise form. In response to this
particular type of
anthropogenic effluent, therefore, cloud lifetimes expand at both
ends of
their existence spectrum - they are born earlier and die later -
and, in
imitation of the starship Enterprise, they are able to grow where
no clouds
have grown before.
How significant are these phenomena? Approximately one
decade ago, Leaitch
et al. (1992) concluded that the increased radiative cooling
power due to
just the increase in cloud albedo that results from
pollution-induced
increases in cloud droplet concentration averages about 2 Wm-2
over North
America, which is about half the radiative warming power that is
typically
predicted to accompany a nominal doubling of the air's CO2
content.
Nowadays, and adding the impact of increased cloud cover, the
overall effect
would likely be considerably greater.
In another study of the climatic implications of
anthropogenic-produced
aerosols, Satheesh and Ramanathan (2000) measured the clear-sky
radiative
consequences of the December-to-April northeastern low-level
monsoonal flow
of air that transports sulphates, nitrates, organics, soot and
fly ash
(among other anthropogenically-produced substances) from the
Indian
sub-continent and southern Asia thousands of kilometers over the
entire
north Indian Ocean and as far south as 10°S latitude. They
found that the
"mean clear-sky solar radiative heating for the winters of
1998 and 1999
decreased at the ocean surface by 12 to 30 Wm-2," which
Schwartz and Buseck
(2000) indicate is "three to seven times as great as global
average longwave
(infrared) radiative forcing by increases in greenhouse gases
over the
industrial period ... but opposite in sign." This
finding, however, was
somewhat tempered by the study of Ackerman et al. (2000), who
suggested the
large cooling effect was likely counterbalanced by a simultaneous
reduction
in cloud cover (see our Editorial of 1 June 2000). But the
very next year,
a long-term study of real-world data (Norris, 2001) proved this
suggestion
to be wrong, thereby reaffirming the overall implications of the
results of
Satheesh and Ramanathan. Norris reasoned that if the
conclusion of Ackerman
et al. was correct, the great increase in anthropogenic aerosol
emissions
from southern and southeast Asia over the last half-century
should have
significantly decreased the low-level cloud cover over the
northern Indian
Ocean over this period. A test of this idea with data from
the Extended
Edited Cloud Report Archive, however, revealed that daytime
low-level cloud
cover over this part of the world not only did not decrease over
the last
half-century, it increased ... and it did so in both the Northern
and
Southern Hemispheric regions of the study area and at essentially
all hours
of the day.
In a somewhat similar study, Croke et al. (1999) determined that
the mean
cloud cover of three regions of the United States (coastal
southwest,
coastal northeast and southern plains) rose from 35% to 47% from
1900 to
1987, while global mean air temperature rose by approximately
0.5°C.
Likewise, Chernykh et al. (2001) determined that global cloud
cover rose by
nearly 6% between1964 and 1998. These observations suggest
that earth's
hydrologic cycle does indeed tend to moderate the thermal effects
of any
impetus for warming and, as noted by the latter authors, is
"consistent with
the decrease in diurnal temperature range evident over most of
the globe,"
which tends to make for a more stable natural environment.
Another way by which clouds tend to stabilize earth's climate was
suggested
by Sud et al. (1999). Based on data from the Tropical Ocean
Global
Atmosphere - Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment, these
investigators found that deep convection in the tropics acts as a
thermostat
to keep sea surface temperature (SST) vacillating over a rather
narrow
range. Starting at the low end of the range, the tropical
ocean acts as a
net receiver of energy, and it warms. Soon thereafter,
however, the
cloud-base airmass is charged with the moist static energy needed
for clouds
to reach the upper troposphere; and the cloud cover thus formed
reduces the
amount of solar radiation received at the sea surface, while its
cool and
dry downdrafts also tend to promote surface cooling. This
"thermostat-like
control," as the authors put it, tends to "ventilate
the tropical ocean
efficiently and help contain the SST between
28-30°C." Presumably, it would
also act to keep any CO2-induced warming below the same upper
bound.
Yet another way in which tropical ocean temperatures may be
constrained by
cloud-mediated phenomena has been described by Lindzen et al.
(2001). [See
also our Editorial of 21 March 2001.] Based on upper-level
cloudiness data
obtained from the Japanese Geostationary Meteorological Satellite
and SST
data obtained from the National Centers for Environmental
Protection, these
researchers determined that the cloudy moist region of the
eastern part of
the tropical western Pacific "appears to act as an infrared
adaptive iris
that opens up and closes down the regions free of upper-level
clouds, which
more effectively permit infrared cooling, in such a manner as to
resist
changes in tropical surface temperature." Indeed, the
strong inverse
relationship they found between upper-level cloud area and mean
SST was
determined to be sufficient to "more than cancel all the
positive feedbacks
in the more sensitive current climate models," which, of
course, are the
ones that are used to predict the consequences of projected
increases in the
air's CO2 content.
Earth's plant life also plays an important role in stabilizing
climate. The
pioneering paper of Charlson et al. (1987), for example,
describes how an
initial SST increase leads to increased phytoplanktonic
productivity, which
leads to a greater sea-to-air flux of dimethyl sulfide (DMS),
which
undergoes a gas-to-particle conversion that leads to greater
numbers of
cloud condensation nuclei that create more and brighter clouds
that reflect
more incoming solar radiation back to space, thereby countering
the initial
impetus for warming. Ayers and Gillett (2000) recently
reviewed what has
been learned in subsequent years, concluding that "major
links in the
feedback chain proposed by Charlson et al. (1987) have a sound
physical
basis," additionally noting there is "compelling
observational evidence to
suggest that DMS and its atmospheric products participate
significantly in
processes of climate regulation and reactive atmospheric
chemistry in the
remote marine boundary layer of the Southern
Hemisphere." Additional recent
support for the powerful negative feedback loop is provided by
Simo and
Pedros-Alio (1999), who studied the effect of the depth of the
surface
mixing-layer on DMS production.
Although real-world studies thus continue to elucidate the
workings of the
planet's complex climate system and improve our understanding of
it, there
continue to be major problems with computer models that attempt
to mimic it.
Groisman et al. (2000), for example, evaluated the ability of a
number of
climate models to reproduce mean daily cloud-temperature
relations at
different times of year. Although most models did a good
job in the cold
part of the year, the authors note that "large discrepancies
between
empirical data and some models are found for summer
conditions." In fact,
the overall cloud effect on summer near-surface air temperature
computed by
one of the models was even of the wrong sign!
In another study, Gordon et al. (2000) examined the response of a
coupled
general circulation model of the atmosphere to quasi-realistic
specified
marine stratocumulus clouds and compared the results to what they
obtained
from their model when operating in its normal mode, which fails
to
adequately express the presence of the clouds and their
effects. And what
were the consequences of this failure? When they removed
the low clouds, as
occurs in the model's normal application, the sea surface
temperature warmed
by fully 5.5°C.
Clearly, the current roster of climate models still has a long
way to go
before being able to accurately predict the ultimate climatic
consequences
of the vast array of pertinent human activities. When one
tallies up the
scorecard of empirical observations, however, the Climatic
Coolers are found
to be way ahead of the Planetary Warmers.
References
Ackerman, A.S., Toon, O.B., Stevens, D.E., Heymsfield, A.J.,
Ramanathan, V.
and Welton, E.J. 2000. Reduction of tropical
cloudiness by soot. Science
288: 1042-1047.
Ayers, G.P. and Gillett, R.W. 2000. DMS and its
oxidation products in the
remote marine atmosphere: implications for climate and
atmospheric
chemistry. Journal of Sea Research 43: 275-286.
Boucher, O. 1999. Air traffic may increase cirrus
cloudiness. Nature 397:
30-31.
Charlson, R.J., Lovelock, J.E., Andrea, M.O. and Warren,
S.G. 1987.
Oceanic phytoplankton, atmospheric sulfur, cloud albedo and
climate. Nature
326: 655-661.
Charlson, R.J., Seinfeld, J.H., Nenes, A., Kulmala, M.,
Laaksonen, A. and
Facchini, M.C. 2001. Reshaping the theory of cloud
formation. Science
292: 2025-2026.
Chernykh, I.V., Alduchov, O.A. and Eskridge, R.E.
2001. Trends in low and
high cloud boundaries and errors in height determination of cloud
boundaries. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
82: 1941-1947.
Croke, M.S., Cess, R.D. and Hameed, S. 1999. Regional
cloud cover change
associated with global climate change: Case studies for three
regions of the
United States. Journal of Climate 12: 2128-2134.
Facchini, M.C., Mircea, M., Fuzzi, S. and Charlson, R.J.
1999. Cloud
albedo enhancement by surface-active organic solutes in growing
droplets.
Nature 401: 257-259.
Ferek, R.J., Hegg, D.A., Hobbs, P.V., Durkee, P. and Nielsen,
K. 1998.
Measurements of ship-induced tracks in clouds off the Washington
coast.
Journal of Geophysical Research 103: 23,199-23,206.
Gordon, C.T., Rosati, A. and Gudgel, R. 2000.
Tropical sensitivity of a
coupled model to specified ISCCP low clouds. Journal of
Climate 13:
2239-2260.
Groisman, P.Ya., Bradley, R.S. and Sun, B. 2000. The
relationship of cloud
cover to near-surface temperature and humidity: Comparison of GCM
simulations with empirical data. Journal of Climate 13:
1858-1878.
Kulmala, M., Laaksonen, A., Korhonen, P., Vesala, T. and Ahonen,
T. 1993.
The effect of atmospheric nitric acid vapor on cloud condensation
nucleus
activation. Journal of Geophysical Research 98:
22,949-22,958.
Leaitch, W.R., Isaac, G.A., Stapp, J.W., Banic, C.M. and Wiebe,
H.A. 1992.
The relationship between cloud droplet number concentrations and
anthropogenic pollution: Observations and climatic
implications. Journal of
Geophysical Research 97: 2463-2474.
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.
Meerkotter, R., Schumann, U., Doelling, D.R., Minnis, P.,
Nakajima, T. and
Tsushima, Y. 1999. Radiative forcing by
contrails. Annales Geophysicae
17: 1080-1094.
Nakanishi, S., Curtis, J. and Wendler, G. 2001. The
influence of increased
jet airline traffic on the amount of high level cloudiness in
Alaska.
Theoretical and Applied Climatology 68: 197-205.
Norris, J.R. 2001. Has northern Indian Ocean cloud
cover changed due to
increasing anthropogenic aerosol? Geophysical Research
Letters 28:
3271-3274.
Satheesh, S.K. and Ramanathan, V. 2000. Large
differences in tropical
aerosol forcing at the top of the atmosphere and Earth's
surface. Nature
405: 60-63.
Schwartz, S.E. and Buseck, P.R. 2000. Absorbing
phenomena. Science 288:
989-990.
Simo, R. and Pedros-Alio, C. 1999. Role of vertical
mixing in controlling
the oceanic production of dimethyl sulphide. Nature 402:
396-399.
Sud, Y.C., Walker, G.K. and Lau, K.-M. 1999.
Mechanisms regulating
sea-surface temperatures and deep convection in the
tropics. Geophysical
Research Letters 26: 1019-1022.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
===========
(9) WHY WE ALL LOVE WALLY BROECKER
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 14 November 2001
http://www.co2science.org/edit/v4_edit/v4n46edit.htm
In a paper entitled "Glaciers that speak in tongues and
other tales of
global warming," which was published in the October 2001
issue of Natural
History, Wallace S. Broecker of Columbia University's
Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory describes some scientific findings that are of the
utmost
importance to our understanding of current and future world
climate,
findings about which he is intensely concerned but which many
other
believers in CO2-induced global warming, i.e., those we call
climate
alarmists, would just as soon ignore.
Broecker begins by discussing the Little Ice Age, a period he
refers to as
"a cold episode that ran from about 1300 to
1860." He notes that glacial
evidence for this significant climatic excursion can be found all
the way
from the Swiss Alps in the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern
Alps of New
Zealand's South Island. Furthermore, and in contradiction
of the claim of a
group of climate revisionists who are trying to convince the
world that the
Little Ice Age was but an ill-defined regional phenomenon
confined to
countries around the North Atlantic Ocean, he rightly proffers
the opinion
(see Little Ice Age in our Subject Index) that "the Little
Ice Age cooled
not just Europe but the world."
Since 1860, however, the earth has warmed. Yet, as Broecker
notes, "roughly
half the overall warming since 1860 occurred before carbon
dioxide (CO2)
emissions from human activities had reached significant
levels."
Continuing, he says that some people, such as us, "take this
as evidence
that most of the current upswing in temperature is merely a
continuation of
the natural events that brought the Little Ice Age to a
close." Since this
hypothesis is a very real possibility that would be both foolish
and
dangerous to ignore, he courageously concludes that "we need
to know how
much earth's temperatures would have fluctuated in the absence of
the
Industrial Revolution and whether we are now exacerbating or
counteracting
these fluctuations."
Broecker's first focus in attempting to answer this question is
on mountain
glaciers, studies of which can allow the reconstruction of past
temperatures
with a margin of error that is often less than a quarter of a
degree C.
>From a vast array of evidence - including historical records
of glacier
terminus positions, the size and location of glacial terminal
moraines, and
the nature of the debris within them - he concludes that several
times prior
to the glacial expansion of the Little Ice Age, "Alpine
glaciers pushed out
to roughly the same position they occupied in 1850."
Even more important may be the characteristics of ancient pieces
of wood and
peat that regularly wash out from beneath retreating
glaciers. The carbon
dates of these materials fall into distinct groupings, with each
group, in
the words of Broecker, "presumably representing a warm
episode when Alpine
glaciers were even smaller than they are today." The
most recent of such
episodes, of course, would be the Medieval Warm Period (another
climatic
phenomenon the climate alarmists are wroth to recognize) and
before that the
Roman Warm Period. [For still others see McDermott et al.
(2001).] The
existence of these numerous warm periods, which reduced glaciers
to even
smaller dimensions than they possess today, adds even more
evidence to the
argument that the current climatic state of the planet is in no
way unusual
... and surely not unprecedented!
Other evidence for regularly-recurring "little" warm
and cold periods comes
from the bottom of the sea, specifically, from sediments that lie
beneath
the deep waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. There,
Broecker's Columbia
University colleague Gerard Bond discovered ice-rafted debris,
the chemical
characteristics of which tell a story of alternating warm and
cold periods
that have occurred "virtually unchanged, in both amplitude
and duration,"
with a "nearly regular, 1,500-year cycle" that
monotonously repeats itself
through both ice-age and non-ice-age periods alike.
With such proven and dependable regularity, it's a good bet that
this
warm/cool climatic cycle - of which the Medieval Warm Period and
Little Ice
Age are the most recent manifestations - will not be terminating
anytime
soon. Hence, we feel confident in predicting continued
modest warming,
based not on the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content, but on a
continuation of the natural 1500-year cyclical rhythm of earth's
climate
that has operated as far back in time as we have
sufficiently-time-resolved
data to detect (see our Journal Reviews of the papers by Oppo et
al., 1998;
Raymo et al., 1998; Bianchi and McCave, 1999; McManus et al.,
1999; Keigwin
and Boyle, 2000).
Clearly, to repeat some of the concluding words of Broecker,
"we can state
with some confidence that natural Holocene temperature
fluctuations have
been on the same scale as the human-caused effects estimated to
result from
greenhouse gases." Hence, as he continues, "we
cannot assume that in the
absence of human intervention, earth's temperatures would have
remained
stable." It would thus appear to be our common
conclusion that we cannot
unequivocally attribute any of the temperature rise of the past
century and
a half to CO2-induced global warming. And that is why, as
Broecker states
in an earlier paper (Broecker, 1999), there exists "adequate
room for
maneuvering ... for those who doubt that the buildup of carbon
dioxide and
other greenhouse gases constitutes a substantial threat."
Yes, there is absolutely no way for proponents of CO2 emission
regulations
to prove their case, especially when all indications suggest that
nothing
climatically out of the ordinary is even on the verge of
happening, or, as
climate alarmists are irrationally wont to claim, has already
happened. But
"does this mean we can all sit back, do nothing, and wait
for the results to
roll in?" Broecker answers his rhetorical question
with a Certainly not.
We, however, say Yes, especially with respect to committing the
nations of
the earth to mandatory CO2 emissions reductions.
With respect to this difference of opinions, it is important to
note that
they are just that, opinions. Broecker bases his on a
belief in the
adequacy of current climate models. We base ours on a
belief in their
inadequacy, as well as the weight of evidence discussed above,
plus the
likelihood we will need all the atmospheric CO2 we can muster in
the years
ahead to prevent the catastrophic shortages of food and water
that will
otherwise likely materialize (see our Editorials of 1 October
1999, 1
February 2000, 15 November 2000, 21 February 2001, 2 May 2001, 13
June
2001).
Although we thus disagree with Broecker on what he thinks we
should be doing
about the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content, we have not the
slightest
doubt about the sincerity of his expressed belief. And we have
nothing but
the greatest admiration for his scientific insight and integrity.
If
everyone on both sides of the issue were as forthcoming as he is
with
respect to these matters, it would be a far, far better world.
Keep up the good work, Wally. We love you!
Dr. Sherwood B. Idso
President Dr. Keith E. Idso
Vice President
PS: Neither of us has ever met the eminent scientist whose ideas
we here
discuss, and we hope that our editorial brings him no
embarrassment.
Clearly it shouldn't, for his life's work is of such a caliber
that it can
be neither enhanced nor diminished by anything we might possibly
say.
References
Bianchi, G.G. and McCave, I.N. 1999. Holocene
periodicity in North
Atlantic climate and deep-ocean flow south of Iceland.
Nature 397: 515-517.
Broecker, W. 1999. Climate change prediction.
Science 283: 179.
Broecker, W.S. 2001. Glaciers That Speak in Tongues
and other tales of
global warming. Natural History 110 (8): 60-69.
Keigwin, L.D. and Boyle, E.A. 2000. Detecting
Holocene changes in
thermohaline circulation. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences
USA 97: 1343-1346.
McDermott, F., Mattey, D.P. and Hawkesworth, C. 2001.
Centennial-scale
Holocene climate variability revealed by a high-resolution
speleotherm ð18O
record from SW Ireland. Science 294: 1328-1331.
McManus, J.F., Oppo, D.W. and Cullen, J.L. 1999. A
0.5-million-year record
of millennial-scale climate variability in the North
Atlantic. Science 283:
971-974.
Oppo, D.W., McManus, J.F. and Cullen, J.L. 1998.
Abrupt climate events
500,000 to 340,000 years ago: Evidence from subpolar North
Atlantic
sediments. Science 279: 1335-1338.
Raymo, M.E., Ganley, K., Carter, S., Oppo, D.W. and McManus,
J. 1998.
Millennial-scale climate instability during the early Pleistocene
epoch.
Nature 392: 699-702.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
============
(10) OPINION: AN AMERICAN ALTERNATIVE TO ENVIRO-GLOOM: REDUCE
GLOBAL POVERTY
>From Tech Central Station, 14 November 2001
http://www.techcentralstation.com/NewsDesk.asp?FormMode=MainTerminalArticles&ID=114
By: James K. Glassman, Host, Tech Central Station
"The Kyoto Protocol is saved." So announced Olivier
DeLeuze, head of a
delegation from the European Union at the meeting of
representatives from
about 170 nations who gathered in exotic Marrakech, Morocco to
decide what
to do about the earth's climate.
Again, the subject was the Kyoto Protocol, which requires
industrialized
countries to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions below 1990
levels. And after
two weeks of deliberations among those countries participating in
Kyoto, a
deal on many of the particulars was reached. Fortunately, for
America and
for the world, the United States is not a party to the treaty.
In a resolution four years ago, the Senate voted 95-0 to reject
any climate
treaty that would do "serious harm" to the U.S.
economy. Kyoto would
certainly do that. According to a study by President Clinton's
Energy
Department, implementing the treaty would reduce our GDP by three
to four
percentage points, and the cost of gasoline and utilities would
rise by
$2,500 per family. Al Gore signed Kyoto anyway, but Bill Clinton
never
submitted it for ratification. In March, President Bush made the
U.S.
rejection official, calling Kyoto "fatally flawed."
Since then, the United States has been under enormous pressure-
especially
from European nations, which face a much lighter burden under
Kyoto than
does the U.S.-to do something about global warming. Bush says
that
drastically cutting carbon dioxide emissions, produced in the
burning of all
fossil fuels, is far too high a price to pay for a problem that
exists so
far only in unreliable computer models. He wants more research.
But research, while necessary, is not sufficient. The
administration should
consider a new approach, an approach that could be
expanded-especially in
this new age of terrorism-to become a central pillar of U.S.
foreign policy.
America's focus over the next years shouldn't be carbon dioxide,
but
poverty.
First, some science: Throughout the earth's history-long before
the
appearance of humans-the planet has been heating and cooling in
cycles. Over
the past century, surface temperatures have risen 1 degree
Fahrenheit, an
increase that has probably caused more good than harm. The
unresolved
question is how much of this slight warming is the result of
human CO2
emissions and how much is natural-perhaps produced by variations
in solar
energy. Kyoto seeks to slash human emissions, but even if the
computer
models are right the effects of such expensive cutbacks on
temperature will
be tiny.
But Kyoto is more than a scientific prescription. It is a
distinct
political, social, and economic vision. Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish
scientist
who says he once held "left-wing Greenpeace views,"
writes in his important
new book The Skeptical Environmentalist that the
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (the United Nations advisory group on the subject)
is "using
global warming as a springboard for other, wider policy
goals." The IPCC,
Lomborg writes, wants "a society which is less
resource-oriented, less
industrialized, less commercialized, less production-oriented....
It is
important to realize that the discussion is no longer primarily
about
energy."
The U.S. should offer its own political, social, and economic
vision for the
future-a program to reduce global poverty. What does that have to
do with
Kyoto? Plenty. To respond to any environmental calamity-warming
or cooling,
floods or droughts-nations need the resilience that comes from a
strong
economy. New irrigation, dikes, transformed industries, can only
be created
with wealth. The U.S. response to the European challenge on
global warming,
then, should be to promote economic growth in poverty-stricken
nations-by
far the most vulnerable to the dangers of any adverse change in
climate.
Imagine the depressive global economic effects of a Kyoto regime
that would
reduce U.S. output alone by up to $400 billion a year. The
natural course of
economic development over the next 50 years will enrich countries
that are
currently poor, allowing them to cope with effects of climate
change-if such
change, human-induced or natural, occurs. Malaria-afflicted
Malaysia, for
instance, will become like healthy Singapore. But if economic
growth is
impeded, environmental and health progress will also stall. As
its
alternative to Kyoto, the U.S. should launch a program of
economic and
environmental aid to "aspiring" nations-those that
protect entrepreneurship,
reject statism, and accept democratic values. Mexico and India
are prime
candidates. We should enact nation-to-nation agreements, not
another global
treaty with all the posturing and bureaucracy that treaty making
entails.
And the emphasis must be on clean-energy sources.
Let the Europeans go their own way. Their leaders preach
downsizing, small
thinking, pain, and fear. The U.S. has more in common with
aspiring Third
World peoples, who know that the key to better health and a
cleaner
environment is economic growth-exactly what the grandees of Kyoto
disdain.
Copyright 2001, Tech Central Station
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