PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet CLIMATE SCARES & CLIMATE CHANGE, 28 November 2001
=======================================================
"Looking at the best data and comparing them to the output
of the
computer simulations reveals that the simulations exaggerate
warming.
They exaggerate warming at the surface and, to a greater degree,
warming in
the lower troposphere. The computer results are also, presumably,
exaggerating the forecasts of future warming. And that's the good
news from
science for which we should be thankful. It means that the human
effect on
global warming is small and slow to develop. That allows time to
continue
to improve measurements and computer simulations of climate that
will
better define the magnitude of human-made warming. In turn,
leaders
can create a meaningful energy policy - one that is both
effective
and cost-efficient, while energy use continues to help feed and
lift
millions from suffering and poverty."
--Sallie Baliunas, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics, 22 November 2001
"Given the host of uncertainties and unknowns in the
difficult but
important task of climate modeling, the unique attribution of
observed
current climate change to increased atmospheric CO2
concentration,
including the relatively well-observed latest 20 yr, is not
possible. We
further conclude that the incautious use of GCMs to make future
climate
projections from incomplete or unknown forcing scenarios is
antithetical to
the intrinsically heuristic value of models. Such uncritical
application
of climate models has led to the commonly held but erroneous
impression
that modeling has proven or substantiated the hypothesis that CO2
added to the air has caused or will cause significant global
warming."
--Willie Soon, Climate Research, 2 November 2001
"It is readily evident, therefore, that the study of Bond et
al.
provides ample ammunition for defending the premise that the
global
warming of the past century or so may well have been nothing more
than the solar-mediated recovery of the earth from the chilly
conditions
of the most recent Little Ice Age, and that any further warming
of the
planet that might occur would likely be nothing more than a
continuation of the same solar-mediated cycle that is destined to
usher
the globe into the next Medieval-like or Modern Warm Period.
--Sherwood B. Idso, Keith E. Idso, 28 November 2001
(1) THE GOOD NEWS IS THE BAD NEWS IS WRONG
Tech Central Station, 22 November 2001
(2) UNKNOWNS & UNCERTAINTIES IN MODELLING CLIMATIC EFFECTS OF
ANTHROPOGENIC
CO2 EMISSIONS
Willie Soon et al.
(3) GOSH: SUN APPEARS TO BE MAJOR CAUSE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
CO2 Science Magazine, 28 November 2001
(4) FOREST MANAGEMENT MAY MITIGATE GLOBAL WARMING
Science Daily, 27 November 2001
(5) THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD IN GREENLAND
C02 Science Magazine, 28 November 2001
(6) ECOLOGICAL CHANGES IN TROPICAL MONTANE CLOUD FORESTS:
HARBRINGERS OF
GLOBAL WARMING?
CO2 Science Magazine, 28 November 2001
(7) FACE EXPERIMENTS (TREES)
CO2 Science Magazine, 28 November 2001
(8) TRMM CONTINUES TO PROVIDE DIVERSE INSIGHTS INTO CLIMATE
PROCESSES ON ITS
FOURTH ANNIVERSARY
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(9) RE: GLOBAL WARMING MORE COMMON THAN THOUGHT
John Michael Williams <jwill@AstraGate.net>
(10) AND FINALLY: IT'S OFFICIAL - ENGLISH FOOTBALL TEAMS SCORE
FEWER GOALS!
Nature, 27 November 2001
=============
(1) THE GOOD NEWS IS THE BAD NEWS IS WRONG
>From Tech Central Station, 22 November 2001
http://www.techcentralstation.com/EnviroScienceTechnology.asp?id=99
Dr. Sallie Baliunas, Co-Host, Tech Central Station
First, the good news. Petroleum, coal and natural gas supply
around 84% of
energy consumption in the U.S. and 80% worldwide. For now and the
near
future, fossil fuels are key to improving human health and
welfare - and the
environment. The reason is that energy use is essential to
eradicating
poverty that is destructive to humankind and the earth. We are
grateful that
longevity, human welfare and the environment have improved
dramatically in
the 20th century owing to unfettered access to energy.
Now, the (potentially) bad news: Fossil fuel use to supply energy
has added
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the air. Greenhouse
gases in
the air tend to retain some energy near the surface of the earth
that would
otherwise escape to space. As a result, the globally-averaged
temperature
near the surface of the earth should rise, perhaps considerably,
in the
absence of any quenching effects.
So is this bad news correct? Is human activity significantly
warming the
planet? To estimate the impact of the air's increased carbon
dioxide
content, scientists run computer simulations of climate,
sometimes 100-200
years into the future. The outcomes of the computer models differ
among the
models. The middle-range estimate is around 2.5 C temperature
rise by the
year 2100, based on specific assumptions about energy use,
population and
the response of the climate to the bit of extra energy added by
human-produced greenhouse gases in the air.
The models are complicated, reflecting the fact that climate
itself is
extremely complex. And a full simulation requires good knowledge
of the
relevant physical parameters and their interactions. Such a
simulation
requires knowing trillions of variables. But the computing
capability does
not yet even exist to run a full model, and knowledge of many of
the
physical processes required is lacking.
The natural greenhouse effect mainly arises from water vapor at
altitudes
above 1 to 2 miles, plus water droplets and ice crystals in
clouds. Yet
considerable uncertainty exists in those processes. It's true
that all
global climate models work with these uncertainties, and the
calculations
can continue in the absence of knowing the physical process. But
checking
the reliability of the calculations still poses an enormous
hurdle.
It's as if the owner of a manufacturing facility wants to
calculate its
profit or loss. But the owner does not know two significant
items: the cost
of personnel, and the cost of operating the site. Still, the
spreadsheet can
be computed. But the outcome will have a bias - or systematic
error in
scientific phrasing - that contains major uncertainty.
No Substitute for the Scientific Method
One fashionable detour around the hard fact that water vapor and
cloud
processes are poorly understood is to average the outcomes of
different
simulations. But if each model misses the physics, then how
reliable is the
average of all the biased outcomes? Not much.
So be thankful for the scientific method, which insists that a
prediction -
such as the outcome of a computer simulation -- be checked
against reliable
measurements - such as changes in temperature and precipitation.
When we do that we find that the current computer simulations are
exaggerating the globally-averaged warming that should have
occurred in the
last decades, if the models they use were correct.
According to the best measurements available, the response of the
climate to
the small amount of energy added by humans from increased carbon
dioxide in
the air has been small. This contradicts the model results.
For example, in the 20th century, the global average surface
temperature
rose about 0.5 C. At first glance the warming seems attributable
to human
fossil fuel use, which increased sharply in the 20th century. But
the 20th
century temperature shows three distinct trends: (1) strong
warming of about
0.5 C beginning in the late 19th century and peaking around 1940;
(2) a
cooling from 1940 until the late 1970s; and (3) a modest warming
trend from
the late 1970s to the present, discounting the large natural
warming pulse
of the 1997-98 El Nino.
About 80% of the carbon dioxide from human activities entered the
air after
1940. Note first that a substantial warming occurred early in the
century,
before 1940 - prior to the major buildup of the air's carbon
dioxide
concentration. After 1940, the surface temperature fell, and
continued to
fall through most of the 1970s. Since the late 1970s, surface
temperature
has risen. That means that the early 20th century warming must be
largely
natural, and that the human effects can be at most around 0.1 C
per decade -
the maximum amount of warming trend seen since the late 1970s.
And even that small recent global warming trend at the surface
may not be
attributable to human action. In the last decades, new technology
space
instruments have yielded critical information on the human effect
on global
climate change.
Computer simulations of climate also predict warming of both the
surface the
lowest layer of air - the lower troposphere (from roughly 5,000
to 28,000
feet). But the records from microwave sensors aboard satellites
and
validated independently by instruments carried aloft by balloons
show that
the large human-made warming trend predicted by computer
simulations is
absent. The lower troposphere satellite records are essentially
global in
coverage (unlike the surface record that extends, at best, over
20% of the
surface of the earth), and precise. While there are multi-year
increases and
declines in temperature -- the strong El Nino warming pulse in
1997-1998,
for example -- the human global warming trend of approximately
0.5 C
forecast for the length of the record is not seen.
The record from balloons confirms the lack of a global warming
trend from
human activities. This record extends back to 1958, although with
less dense
spatial coverage than the record from satellites. According to
that record,
the lower troposphere shows a substantial warming in 1976-1977,
owing to a
natural, periodic shift in the Pacific Ocean that influences the
global
average temperature. But there is no significant global warming
trend that
could be attributed to humans before or after the Great Pacific
Climate
Shift of 1976-1977.
Looking at the best data and comparing them to the output of the
computer
simulations reveals that the simulations exaggerate warming. They
exaggerate
warming at the surface and, to a greater degree, warming in the
lower
troposphere. The computer results are also, presumably,
exaggerating the
forecasts of future warming.
And that's the good news from science for which we should be
thankful. It
means that the human effect on global warming is small and slow
to develop.
That allows time to continue to improve measurements and computer
simulations of climate that will better define the magnitude of
human-made
warming. In turn, leaders can create a meaningful energy policy -
one that
is both effective and cost-efficient, while energy use continues
to help
feed and lift millions from suffering and poverty.
Copyright 2001, Tech Central Station
================
(2) UNKNOWNS & UNCERTAINTIES IN MODELLING CLIMATIC EFFECTS OF
ANTHROPOGENIC
CO2 EMISSIONS
Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide
emissions:
unknowns and uncertainties
Willie Soon (wsoon@cfa.harvard.edu)
1,2,*, Sallie Baliunas 1,2 , Sherwood B.
Idso 3 , Kirill Ya. Kondratyev 4, Eric S. Posmentier 5. CLIMATE
RESEARCH 18:
259-275, 2001
A likelihood of disastrous global environmental consequences has
been
surmised as a result of projected increases in anthropogenic
greenhouse gas
emissions. These estimates are based on computer climate
modeling, a branch
of science still in its infancy despite recent substantial
strides in
knowledge. Because the expected anthropogenic climate forcings
are
relatively small compared to other background and forcing factors
(internal
and external), the credibility of the modeled global and regional
responses
rests on the validity of the models. We focus on this important
question of
climate model validation. Specifically, we review common
deficiencies in
general circulation model (GCM) calculations of atmospheric
temperature,
surface temperature, precipitation and their spatial and temporal
variability. These deficiencies arise from complex problems
associated with
parameterization of multiply interacting climate components,
forcings and
feedbacks, involving especially clouds and oceans. We also review
examples
of expected climatic impacts from anthropogenic CO2 forcing.
Given the host
of uncertainties and unknowns in the difficult but important task
of climate
modeling, the unique attribution of observed current climate
change to
increased atmospheric CO2 concentration, including the relatively
well-observed latest 20 yr, is not possible. We further conclude
that the
incautious use of GCMs to make future climate projections from
incomplete or
unknown forcing scenarios is antithetical to the intrinsically
heuristic
value of models. Such uncritical application of climate models
has led to
the commonly held but erroneous impression that modeling has
proven or
substantiated the hypothesis that CO2 added to the air has caused
or will
cause significant global warming. An assessment of the merits of
GCMs and
their use in suggesting a discernible human influence on global
climate can
be found in the joint World Meteorological Organisation and
United Nations
Environmental Programme's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC)
reports (1990, 1995 and the up-coming 2001 report). Our review
highlights
only the enormous scientific difficulties facing the calculation
of climatic
effects of added atmospheric CO2 in a GCM. The purpose of such a
limited
review of the deficiencies of climate model physics and the use
of GCMs is
to illuminate areas for improvement. Our review does not disprove
a
significant anthropogenic influence on global climate.
Addresses:
1 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge,
Massachusetts
02138, USA
2 Mount Wilson Observatory, Mount Wilson, California 91023, USA
3 US Water Conservation Laboratory, Phoenix, Arizona 85040, USA
4 Research Centre for Ecological Safety, Russian Academy of
Sciences, St.
Petersburg 197110, Russia
5 Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York 11201, USA
© Inter-Research 2001
===================
(3) GOSH: SUN APPEARS TO BE MAJOR CAUSE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 28 November 2001
http://www.co2science.org/edit/v4_edit/v4n48edit.htm.
The Variable Energy Output of the Sun Appears to Be the Major
Determinant of
Decadal- to Millennial-Scale Global Climate Change
What is responsible for the approximate 1500-year cycle of global
climate
change that has been intensely studied in the region of the North
Atlantic
Ocean and demonstrated to prevail throughout glacial and
interglacial
periods alike? This is the question Bond et al. (2001) set
out to answer in
a study of ice-rafted debris found in three North Atlantic
deep-sea sediment
cores and cosmogenic nuclides (10Be and 14C) sequestered in the
Greenland
ice cap (10Be) and Northern Hemispheric tree rings (14C).
Based on arduous analyses of the deep-sea sediment cores that
yielded the
variable-with-depth amounts of three proven proxies for the prior
presence
of overlying drift-ice, the scientists were able to discern and,
with the
help of an accelerator mass spectrometer, date a number of
recurring
alternate periods of relative cold and warmth that wended their
way through
the entire 12,000-year expanse of the Holocene. The mean
duration of the
several complete climatic cycles thus delineated was 1340 years,
the cold
and warm nodes of the latter of which oscillations, in the words
of Bond et
al., were "broadly correlative with the so called 'Little
Ice Age' and
'Medieval Warm Period'."
The signal accomplishment of the scientists' study was the
linking of these
millennial-scale climate oscillations - and their imbedded
centennial-scale
oscillations - with similar-scale oscillations in cosmogenic
nuclide
production, which are known to be driven by contemporaneous
oscillations in
the energy output of the sun. In fact, Bond et al. were
able to report that
"over the last 12,000 years virtually every centennial
time-scale increase
in drift ice documented in our North Atlantic records was tied to
a solar
minimum." In light of this observation they concluded
that "a solar
influence on climate of the magnitude and consistency implied by
our
evidence could not have been confined to the North
Atlantic," suggesting
that the cyclical climatic effects of the variable solar inferno
are
experienced throughout the world.
At this point of their paper, the international team of
scientists had
pretty much verified a number of things we have regularly
reported on our
website over the past several years, i.e., that in spite of the
contrary
claims of a host of climate alarmists, the Little Ice Age and
Medieval Warm
Period were (1) real, (2) global, (3) solar-induced, and (4) but
the latest
examples of uninterrupted alternating intervals of relative cold
and warmth
that stretch back in time through glacial and interglacial
periods alike.
[For more information on topics 1-3, see Little Ice Age and
Medieval Warm
Period in our Subject Index; for additional material on topic 3,
see Solar
Effects (Climate); for information on topic 4, see Climate
Oscillations.]
Because these several subjects are of such great significance,
particularly
to the global warming debate that currently rages over the
climate
model-predicted consequences of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, Bond
and his
band of researchers went on to cite additional evidence in
support of the
implications of their work. With respect to the global
extent of the
climatic impact of the solar radiation variations they detected
(topics 2
and 3 above, with 1 implied), they made explicit reference to
confirmatory
studies conducted in Scandinavia, Greenland, the Netherlands, the
Faroe
Islands, Oman, the Sargasso Sea, coastal West Africa, the Cariaco
Basin,
equatorial East Africa, and the Yucatan Peninsula, demonstrating
thereby
that "the footprint of the solar impact on climate we have
documented
extend[s] from polar to tropical latitudes." Also in
support of topic 3,
they noted that "the solar-climate links implied by our
record are so
dominant over the last 12,000 years ... it seems almost certain
that the
well-documented connection between the Maunder solar minimum and
the coldest
decades of the LIA could not have been a coincidence,"
further noting that
their findings support previous suggestions that both the Little
Ice Age and
Medieval Warm Period "may have been partly or entirely
linked to changes in
solar irradiance."
Another point reiterated by Bond et al. is that the oscillations
in
drift-ice they studied "persist across the glacial
termination and well into
the last glaciation, suggesting that the cycle is a pervasive
feature of the
climate system." At two of their coring sites, in
fact, they identified a
series of such cyclical variations that extended throughout all
of the
previous interglacial and were "strikingly similar to those
of the
Holocene." Here they could also well have cited the
work of Oppo et al.
(1998), who observed similar climatic oscillations in a sediment
core that
covered the span of time from 340,000 to 500,000 years before
present, and
that of Raymo et al. (1998), who pushed back the time of the
cycles'
earliest known occurrence to well over one million years ago.
So how do the small changes in solar radiation inferred from the
cosmogenic
nuclide variations bring about such significant and pervasive
shifts in
earth's global climate? In answer to this question, which
has long plagued
proponents of a solar-climate link, Bond et al. describe a
scenario whereby
solar-induced changes high in the stratosphere are propagated
downward
through the atmosphere to the earth's surface, where they likely
provoke
changes in North Atlantic Deep Water formation that alter the
global
Thermohaline Circulation. In light of the plausibility of
this scenario,
they suggest that "the solar signals thus may have been
transmitted through
the deep ocean as well as through the atmosphere, further
contributing to
their amplification and global imprint."
Concluding their landmark paper, the authors say the results of
their study
"demonstrate that the earth's climate system is highly
sensitive to
extremely weak perturbations in the sun's energy output,"
noting that their
work "supports the presumption that solar variability will
continue to
influence climate in the future." It is readily evident,
therefore, that the
study of Bond et al. provides ample ammunition for defending the
premise
that the global warming of the past century or so may well have
been nothing
more than the solar-mediated recovery of the earth from the
chilly
conditions of the most recent Little Ice Age, and that any
further warming
of the planet that might occur would likely be nothing more than
a
continuation of the same solar-mediated cycle that is destined to
usher the
globe into the next Medieval-like or Modern Warm Period.
Consequently,
since there's plenty of precedence for this scenario - it's
happened over
and over for more than a million years - and none for a warming
of the
planet as a consequence of atmospheric CO2 enrichment (see
CO2-Temperature
Correlations in our Subject Index), it would seem the height of
folly to
implement any energy policy that would restrict anthropogenic CO2
emissions
for the avowed purpose of attempting to prevent future global
warming. It's
not CO2 that's been causing the earth to warm. It's the sun,
stupid!
Dr. Sherwood B. Idso
Dr. Keith E. Idso
References
Bond, G., Kromer, B., Beer, J., Muscheler, R., Evans, M.N.,
Showers, W.,
Hoffmann, S., Lotti-Bond, R., Hajdas, I. and Bonani, G.
2001. Persistent
solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene.
www.sciencexpress.org
/ 15 November 2001.
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
==============
(4) FOREST MANAGEMENT MAY MITIGATE GLOBAL WARMING
>From Science Daily, 27 November 2001
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/11/011127004952.htm
University Of Wisconsin-Madison, 27 November 2001
Date: Posted 11/27/2001
Forest Management May Mitigate Global Warming
MADISON -- A study published today, Nov. 23, in the journal
Science suggests
that forest management may be used to restrain the increase of
atmospheric
carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Many groups have proposed forest management as a simple way to
offset global
warming. More trees, they argue, will remove from the atmosphere
more carbon
dioxide, a gas plants use to grow and reproduce. But, numerous
climatic and
ecological factors confound this apparently simple solution,
report
researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard
University.
During the last century, the world's average temperatures have
risen by one
degree and sea levels have risen by more than six inches as a
result of
increased amounts of both natural and human-produced greenhouse
gases such
as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Many scientists believe high levels of carbon dioxide, which is
released
when fossil fuels and wood products burn, could permanently alter
the
environment.
To investigate forest management as a method for controlling
global warming,
researchers conducted a decade-long study of carbon exchange
between the
atmosphere and Harvard Forest, a 60-year-old forest stand
dominated by
northern red oaks. Specifically, they measured how much carbon
the trees and
soils stored and how much they released.
In the short term, carbon exchange depended primarily on physical
and
climatic factors such as time of day or season. "At night,
the trees
respire, so more carbon dioxide is released from the
forest," says Carol
Barford, one of the researchers who now works at the UW-Madison
Center for
Sustainability and the Global Environment. "During the day,
the trees
photosynthesize, which requires the net uptake of carbon."
Seasonal patterns also produced fluctuations. The date the fall
and spring
seasons began, the amount of snow covering the ground or the
amount of rain
during the summer all seem to affect carbon exchange, she says.
"Discrete
weather features make a big difference in carbon balance from
year to year."
But Barford adds, "Over a decade, all those variations wash
out."
The researchers' results suggest that, in the long term,
ecological factors
-- not climatic ones -- change carbon balance. The types of tree
species in
the forest, their growth rate and the age of the forest can all
alter carbon
uptake. These factors, Barford notes, can be influenced by forest
management.
At maturity, for example, trees store less carbon and remove less
carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere. The number of dead trees also
affects carbon
balance. When a tree decays, Barford explains, it releases some
of its
carbon back into the air.
Barford and the Harvard team used two methods to determine carbon
dioxide
levels. A tower-based method, known as eddy covariance, measured
the net
storage and net release of carbon into the air. Ground-based
biometry, a
longer-standing method, measured changes in the trees' diameter,
a direct
indication of carbon storage. Both measurements produced similar
results --
an important finding, Barford says, that brings validation to the
newer
method.
These results suggest that forest management can help mitigate
global
warming by controlling carbon exchange -- but numerous factors
should be
considered. "What to do about forest management is a complex
issue," Barford
stresses. "Our results do not lead clearly to any one
management
recommendation."
============
(5) THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD IN GREENLAND
>From Co2 Science Magazine, 28 November 2001
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n48c2.htm
------------------------------------------
Reference
Wagner, B. and Melles, M. 2001. A Holocene seabird record from
Raffles So
sediments, East Greenland, in response to climatic and oceanic
changes.
Boreas 30: 228-239.
What was done
The authors analyzed a 3.5-m-long sediment core taken from a lake
(Raffels
So) on an island (Raffles O) situated just off Liverpool Land on
the east
coast of Greenland for a number of properties related to the past
presence
of seabirds there, obtaining a 10,000-year record that tells us
much about
the region's climatic history. Key to the study were
biogeochemical data
that, in the words of the authors, reflect "variations in
seabird breeding
colonies in the catchment which influence nutrient and cadmium
supply to the
lake." Previously-derived proxy records of temperature
from two other
locations were also employed in the study.
What was learned
The authors' data reveal sharp increases in the values of the
parameters
they measured between about 1100 and 700 years before present
(BP),
indicative of the summer presence of significant numbers of
seabirds during
that "medieval warm period," which had been preceded by
a
several-hundred-year period of little to no (inferred) bird
presence.
Thereafter, their data suggested another absence of birds during
"a
subsequent Little Ice Age," which they note was "the
coldest period since
the early Holocene in East Greenland." The data also
show signs of a
"resettlement of seabirds during the last 100 years,
indicated by an
increase of organic matter in the lake sediment and confirmed by
bird
observations." However, values of the most recent
biogeochemical
measurements are not as great as those obtained from the earlier
Medieval
Warm Period. Reconstructed proxy temperature histories from
two Greenland
ice cores lead to the same conclusion, indicating higher
temperatures during
the period from 1100 to 700 years BP than what has been observed
over the
most recent hundred years.
What it means
As with many other paleoclimate investigations - and contrary to
the
repeated claims of climate alarmists - the results of this
"paleobird" study
suggest that the global warming of the last century has not yet
returned the
planet to temperatures as high as those it experienced during the
Medieval
Warm Period. Hence, there is no compelling reason to invoke the
historical
rise in the air's CO2 content as the cause of any portion of the
most recent
increase in the globe's near-surface air temperature.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change
============
(6) ECOLOGICAL CHANGES IN TROPICAL MONTANE CLOUD FORESTS:
HARBRINGERS OF
GLOBAL WARMING?
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 28 November 2001
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n48c1.htm
Reference
Foster, P. 2001. The potential negative impacts of global climate
change on
tropical montane cloud forests. Earth-Science Reviews 55: 73-106.
Background
In our Editorial of 21 November 2001, we described how a pair of
papers
published in Nature back in 1999 blamed global warming for
wreaking havoc on
tropical montane cloud forests, particularly in the highland
areas of
Monteverde, Costa Rica, after which we described a new study
(published in
Science), which convincingly demonstrates that the actual cause
of the
ecological disruptions observed there was the past century's
deforestation
of upwind lowlands. We here review a newer paper produced by one
of the
authors of one of the Nature papers that was written and accepted
for
publication long before the appearance of the recent Science
study and which
thus still holds to the old view of the issue.
What was done
In a major review paper, the author (astrophysicist Pru Foster)
describes
some of the special features of tropical montane cloud forests,
emphasizing
the negative impacts she and others believe global warming may
have on these
unique ecosystems.
What was learned
Among other things, Foster draws attention to potential increases
in "dry
seasons, droughts, hurricanes and intense rain storms, all of
which might
increase damage to the cloud forests." She also
suggests that "coming
climate changes appear very likely to upset the current dynamic
equilibrium
of the cloud forest," resulting in "biodiversity loss,
altitude shifts in
species' ranges and subsequent community reshuffling, and
possibly forest
death." Foster notes, for example, that global climate
models predict
"altitude shifts in the climatic optimum for mountain
ecotones of hundreds
of meters by the time of CO2 doubling," which she says
implies the "complete
replacement of many of the narrow altitude range cloud forests by
lower
altitude ecosystems, as well as the expulsion of peak residing
cloud forests
into extinction." In the case of the Monteverde Cloud
Forest in Costa Rica,
she states that these ominous changes are already underway, i.e.,
that "the
height of the cloudbank is already rising, resulting in less
cloud
immersion, and thus driving local extinctions through enhanced
dryness,"
calling the intense sensitivity of the cloud forest "an
early warning
system" of worse things to come.
What it means
"Perhaps the warning bell is already ringing," says
Foster with respect to
the ecological changes observed in the Monteverde Cloud Forest;
and in this
assessment she is correct. But of what it warns us is not
what she
contends. Her ignorance of the new thinking on the subject
(at the time she
wrote her review) tends to draw our attention from the real cause
of the
various biological perturbations in the former land of mists
(deforestation
of upwind lowlands) to a purported problem (CO2-induced global
warming) that
is likely unreal, insoluble (if it were real) and (in any case) a
monetary
black hole - to put it in astrophysical terms Foster should
clearly
understand - into which we can eternally throw ungodly amounts of
money and
never see a glimmer of a return on the "investment,"
which, of course, keeps
us from effectively dealing with the true cause of the local
climate changes
and ensuing ecological perturbations.
Yes, the "canary" of the Monteverde Cloud Forest
"coal mine" is sending us a
message, alright; but it is not one of impending disaster due to
CO2-induced
global warming (again, see our Editorial of 21 November
2001). Rather, it
is telling us that certain of the local activities of man are
having
significant deleterious local consequences. Clearly, if we
all took care of
our own backyards, the earth would have no trouble taking care of
itself.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
===============
(7) FACE EXPERIMENTS (TREES)
Frtom CO2 Science Magazine, 28 November 2001
http://www.co2science.org/subject/f/summaries/facetrees.htm.
In controlled experiments, plants subjected to atmospheric CO2
enrichment
almost always exhibit increases in rates of photosynthesis and
biomass
production under both optimal and less than optimal growth
conditions.
Critics, however, have sometimes suggested that results obtained
from CO2
enrichment experiments conducted in growth cabinets, greenhouses,
and even
open-top chambers may not reflect real-world plant responses to
atmospheric
CO2 enrichment due to changes in microclimate caused by the
experimental
enclosures. To answer this criticism, Free-Air CO2
Enrichment (FACE)
technology was developed as a means to increase the air's CO2
concentration
around vegetation while having minimal impact on the vegetation's
microclimate. In this summary, we review the results of
such FACE
experiments conducted on various trees, many of which were
studied as they
grew naturally in established forests.
In 1996, circular FACE plots 30 meters in diameter were
established in a
13-year-old loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) plantation growing on a
nutrient-poor soil in North Carolina, USA, which plots were
thereafter
maintained so as to provide atmospheric CO2 concentrations of
either 360 or
560 ppm to the trees growing within them. Although the
plantation was
dominated by pines, several hardwood species were also present
beneath the
primary coniferous canopy; and all were studied for their various
responses
to the 200-ppm increase in the air's CO2 concentration.
In one study, photosynthetic rates in the dominant pine species
were
increased by up to 65% (Hymus et al., 1999). The elevated
CO2 also
increased photosynthetic rates in understory saplings of Acer
rubrum, Carya
glabra, Liquidambar styraciflua and Cercis canadensis by 50, 75,
100 and
160%, respectively (DeLucia and Thomas, 2000). In addition,
rates of growth
respiration - which is the amount of CO2 respired when plants
construct new
tissues - was decreased by elevated CO2 in both pine and
Liquidambar
styraciflua, by 21 and 39%, respectively (Hamilton et al.,
2001). Together,
the CO2 -induced increases in photosynthesis and the concomitant
reductions
in respiratory carbon loss contributed to greater growth rates in
the
CO2-enriched trees. After one year of atmospheric CO2
enrichment, for
example, the growth rate of CO2-enriched pine trees was about 24%
greater
than that of control trees growing in ambient air (Naidu and
DeLucia, 1999);
and after two years, the CO2-induced growth stimulation stood at
26%
(DeLucia et al., 1999). Furthermore, in a truly stunning
observation,
atmospheric CO2 enrichment was found to increase reproductive
cone
production in the CO2-enriched trees by 140%, while it enhanced
seed
production by approximately three-fold (LaDeau and Clark, 2001).
In the same experimental plots, Herrick and Thomas (1999) took a
closer look
at photosynthesis in one of the dominant understory hardwood
species:
sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua). They determined from
extensive seasonal
monitoring that CO2-induced percentage increases in
photosynthesis rose with
increasing air temperature and water stress. In June, for
example,
atmospheric CO2 enrichment increased rates of photosynthesis in
sun and
shade leaves by 92 and 54%, respectively. In August,
however, when air
temperatures were 4°C warmer and rainfall was 66% less, elevated
CO2
increased photosynthetic rates in sun and shade leaves by166 and
68%,
respectively.
Rounding out this family of FACE studies, circular plots
receiving
atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 390 and 540 ppm were
established in 1998
in a ten-year-old stand of sweetgum trees growing in a forest
plantation on
nutrient-rich soils in Tennessee, USA. In this environment,
Norby et al.
(2001) reported that the 150-ppm increase in the air's CO2
concentration
increased the trees' biomass production by an average of 24% over
the first
two years of experimentation; while Wullschleger and Norby (2001)
reported
that it reduced seasonal rates of transpirational water loss by
12%. After
dividing seasonal dry matter production by seasonal
transpiration, the
latter authors also determined that the extra CO2 increased
stand-level
water-use efficiency by 28%.
The results obtained from these FACE experiments strongly suggest
that the
ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content will increase the
photosynthetic
rates, biomass production and carbon sequestration potentials of
many of
earth's trees, even if they are growing under the
less-than-optimal and
stressful conditions of poor soil fertility, low soil moisture
and elevated
air temperature. The increase in CO2 thereby removed from
the atmosphere
should serve as a powerful natural break upon the rate of rise of
the air's
CO2 content.
References
DeLucia, E.H., Hamilton, J.G., Naidu, S.L., Thomas, R.B.,
Andrews, J.A.,
Finzi, A., Lavine, M., Matamala, R., Mohan, J.E., Hendrey, G.R.
and
Schlesinger, W.H. 1999. Net primary production of a
forest ecosystem with
experimental CO2 enrichment. Science 284: 1177-1179.
DeLucia, E.H. and Thomas, R.B. 2000. Photosynthetic
responses to CO2
enrichment of four hardwood species in a forest understory.
Oecologia 122:
11-19.
Hamilton, J.G., Thomas, R.B. and DeLucia, E.H. 2001.
Direct and indirect
effects of elevated CO2 on leaf respiration in a forest
ecosystem. Plant,
Cell and Environment 24: 975-982.
Herrick, J.D. and Thomas, R.B. 1999. Effects of CO2
enrichment on the
photosynthetic light response of sun and shade leaves of canopy
sweetgum
trees (Liquidambar styraciflua) in a forest ecosystem. Tree
Physiology 19:
779-786.
Hymus, G.J., Ellsworth, D.S., Baker, N.R. and Long, S.P.
1999. Does
free-air carbon dioxide enrichment affect photochemical energy
use by
evergreen trees in different seasons? A chlorophyll
fluorescence study of
mature loblolly pine. Plant Physiology 120: 1183-1191.
LaDeau, S.L. and Clark, J.S. 2001. Rising CO2 levels
and the fecundity of
forest trees. Science 292: 95-98
Naidu, S.L. and DeLucia, E.H. 1999. First-year growth
response of trees in
an intact forest exposed to elevated CO2. Global Change
Biology 5: 609-613.
Norby, R.J., Todd, D.E., Fults, J. and Johnson, D.W.
2001. Allometric
determination of tree growth in a CO2-enriched sweetgum
stand. New
Phytologist 150: 477-487.
Wullschleger, S.D. and Norby, R.J. 2001. Sap velocity
and canopy
transpiration in a sweetgum stand exposed to free-air CO2
enrichment (FACE).
New Phytologist 150: 489-498.
Copyright © 2001. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
============
(8) TRMM CONTINUES TO PROVIDE DIVERSE INSIGHTS INTO CLIMATE
PROCESSES ON ITS
FOURTH ANNIVERSARY
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
Timothy R. Tawney
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt,
Md. November 26, 2001
ttawney@pop100.gsfc.nasa.gov
Phone: (301) 614-6573
RELEASE NO: 01-103
TRMM CONTINUES TO PROVIDE DIVERSE INSIGHTS INTO CLIMATE PROCESSES
ON ITS
FOURTH ANNIVERSARY
The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, the
world's first
space mission dedicated to observing and understanding tropical
rainfall,
has successfully completed its fourth year of continuous data
gathering by
providing exciting new insight into tropical and global
rainfall and hurricanes.
Initially designed as a three-year mission, the orbiter is
continuing to
collect a variety of measurements which are being used to answer
a diverse
array of key climate and weather questions related to Earth's
hydrological
cycle. These questions range from microscopic processes that
control the
formation of snowflakes and raindrops inside clouds, to the
shifting
global-scale patterns of El Nino rainfall. The TRMM satellite
provides
valuable insights into the processes that energize city-sized
thunderstorm
clouds and other violent storms, such as hurricanes and monsoon
rains over
Southeast Asia.
"The vast range of rainfall processes being studied by TRMM,
from the scale
of the entire Earth down to one millionth of a meter, is akin to
a
physician's study of the human body, beginning with the organism
as a whole
and progressing downward to the molecular level of DNA,"
stated Dr. Jeff
Halverson, TRMM Education and Outreach Scientist at NASA's
Goddard Space
Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
TRMM science has recently revealed some exciting and startling
insights at
all of these levels of analysis. On one end of the science
spectrum, the
international team of TRMM investigators is learning about the
ways in which
countless tiny cloud particles less than 1 mm across interact
inside clouds to produce rain. With the satellite flying
overhead, specially
equipped research aircraft probe the cloud interiors with
sensitive cloud
particle detection equipment. One crucial finding is that
microscopic dust
and soot particles, which commonly arise from polluted air, can
interfere
with this process of rain formation. The findings indicate that
"dirty"
clouds are less likely to produce rain than their cleaner-air
counterparts,
thus influencing studies of pollution and climate interaction.
On the larger scale of rain clouds themselves, insights are being
discovered
into why there is a tendency for heavy rains to fall primarily
over heated
tropical land masses by day, but over the vast ocean regions
mainly at
night. In addition, it is now known that the greatest
concentration of
lightning on the Earth is centered over the African Congo. The
reasons for
this lightning pattern remain unclear, but solving this puzzle is
nevertheless critical for understanding how the global electrical
circuit
operates.
At the global climate scale, migrating rainfall patterns across
the Pacific
Ocean during El Nino and La Nina episodes are being mapped with a
greater
degree of accuracy than ever before possible, which can lead to
better
prediction of droughts and floods around the world. By combining
the TRMM
rainfall data with other new satellites that map winds and
atmospheric
temperature structure, scientists are discovering key new
processes that
lead to the birth and
intensification of deadly tropical storms, discoveries that may
help in
storm prediction.
Launched in 1997, the TRMM satellite received a new lease on life
in August
2001, when it was boosted into a higher orbit to extend its life.
Halverson
said it is anticipated that the TRMM satellite will remain fully
operational
for up to six years, so the prospects for
further discoveries about rainfall and its impacts on society
remain
excellent. These discoveries, when combined with oceanic and
atmospheric
data from other existing and planned satellites from NASA and the
National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), are expected to
yield fresh
insights into how the Earth's water, land and atmospheric systems
interact
to create both the everyday-type rainfall systems and rare
catastrophic
flood events. These data about the Earth's water cycle will then
help
meteorologists make improvements to forecasts, and help
climatologists
better understand how the global climate is changing.
TRMM is a joint U.S.-Japanese mission and part of NASA's Earth
Science
Enterprise, a long-term research program designed to study the
Earth's land,
oceans, air, ice and life as a total system.
Extensive video resource material is available on the TRMM
mission. For more
information, please contact Rachel Weintraub at 301-286-0918.
Information and images from the TRMM mission are available on the
Internet
at:
http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(9) RE: GLOBAL WARMING MORE COMMON THAN THOUGHT
>From John Michael Williams <jwill@AstraGate.net>
Hi Benny.
I'd like to alert readers to some of the very poor science, in my
opinion,
on which much of the head-butting on global warming is
based. For example,
making an elementary mistake, in 21 November 2001 CCNET,
(1) GLOBAL WARMING MORE COMMON THAN THOUGHT
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
"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."
It is correct that water warming reduces sea life (biomass),
including plant
life, by suffocation caused by expulsion of dissolved gasses into
the
atmosphere. The writer thus does readers a service by correcting
authors and
editors of CO2 Science Magazine, in some of their speculations.
However, there are no organic "corrosive
characteristics" associated with
temperature increase. In fact, increased temperature makes
the calcium
carbonate of shelled sea animals less soluble in water and hence
more
effective. Closely related, and in addition, heating drives out
CO2,
reducing the carbonic acid concentration.
Temperature increases cause the oceans to support less life, as
well as
making the water organically more inert. The atmosphere is an
entirely
different question, and one should not assume that life in the
two
environments will respond similarly to temperature changes.
Much of the confusion and disputation on "global
warming" never would occur
if the antagonists would take time out in a college chemistry
course. And do
some thinking before compiling long lists of citations done by
peers of a
different species.
John
jwill@AstraGate.net
John Michael Williams
===============
(10) AND FINALLY: IT'S OFFICIAL - ENGLISH FOOTBALL TEAMS SCORE
FEWER GOALS!
>From Nature, 27 November 2001
http://www.nature.com/nsu/011129/011129-8.html
27 November 2001
PHILIP BALL
Soccer teams worldwide are scoring more goals than they ought to
be, whereas
English teams seem to follow statistical expectations. The news
may delight
fans outside England, but it is puzzling the physicists who have
found that
the chance of a high-scoring game is significantly greater than
it may first
appear(1).
John Greenhough and colleagues at Warwick University in Coventry,
England,
analysed the scores of over 135,000 football (soccer) games in
the domestic
leagues of 169 countries, played between and 1999 and 2001.
They found that games with a total of more than 10 goals occur
only once in
10,000 English top division matches (about once every 30 years),
whereas
they make up about one in every 300 games worldwide - which means
that there
is roughly one per day.
Low scoring games seem to follow a random probability
distribution: the
chance of a particular score is more-or-less what one would
expect if there
is a constant, random probability of a goal at any moment
throughout the
game.
In such a random process, bigger scores become increasingly
unlikely. There
are more 1-1 draws or 2-0 victories than there are 6-1 victories,
for
example. According to the rules of statistics, the chance of a
high score
should become less and less likely, the higher the scores become
- something
called a Poisson distribution.
But physicists have known for several decades that football games
are far
from normal. The chance of goal scoring doesn't stay even
throughout a
match, but depends on the previous number of near-goals. The
Poisson
distribution can be modified to allow for this, resulting in a
'negative
binomial probability distribution'.
In a further analysis Greenhough and colleagues find that for
English league
and championship matches for the seasons 1970-1971 and 2000-2001
the total
scores of all matches fit a negative binomial distribution well.
In
contrast, domestic matches worldwide produce many more 'extreme
events'
(high scores) than predicted by this statistical distribution.
Why the difference? Does it mean that the English defence or
goalkeepers are
unusually good, or the strikers are unusually poor? Possibly, but
there may
be a statistical explanation: in terms of probability, football
games may
behave more like the stock market or earthquakes.
In recent years, statistical physicists have realized that
probabilistic
processes underlying these complex phenomena show something
called strong
correlations.
Correlations arise when the behaviour of one part of a system is
strongly
influenced by the behaviour of other parts. In football, this
suggests that
goals become increasingly likely as their number mounts up. Fans
and players
will already have an intuitive notion of the effect. When
trailing by 5-0,
say, a defence is more likely to 'crack' than when the score is
2-0. Even if
the teams are well matched, the game becomes more 'volatile' if
it reaches,
say, 4-4: goals then begin to flow more readily.
Why English teams don't show this effect so strongly is a
question sure to
provoke endless debate among armchair strategists.
References
Greenhough, J., Birch, P. C., Chapman, S. C.& Rowlands, G.
Football goal
distributions and extremal statistics. Preprint, (2001).
© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2001
-------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CAMBRIDGE-CONFERENCE NETWORK (CCNet)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The CCNet is a scholarly electronic network. To
subscribe/unsubscribe,
please contact the moderator Benny J Peiser <b.j.peiser@livjm.ac.uk>.
Information circulated on this network is for scholarly and
educational use
only. The attached information may not be copied or reproduced
for
any other purposes without prior permission of the copyright
holders. The
fully indexed archive of the CCNet, from February 1997 on, can be
found at
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html
DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in the
articles
and texts and in other CCNet contributions do not necessarily
reflect the
opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the moderator of this
network.