PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet TERRA 13/2002 - 11 December 2002
------------------------------------
"Scientists have been warning that the Earth is slowly
heating up,
that the recent run of gentle winters in the United States is no
fluke, but
the warm-up to the big meltdown. Now, however, comes a chilling
prediction
from some of the same experts. Before the climate gets balmier,
they say,
it could take a sudden turn toward the frigid - and stay that way
for
decades, if not centuries.... Exactly when it might occur,
scientists
generally are loath to speculate. "None of us could tell you
whether
that event happens next year or 100 years from now," said
Raymond W.
Schmitt Jr., senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution
in Massachusetts, which has taken the lead in studying the
freshwater pool.
Researchers find themselves toeing a fine line between informing
the public
and setting off a panic, Schmitt added."
--Anthony R. Wood, The Philidelphia Inquirer, 8 December
2002
"In fact, a lot of the scare is about two things that
arguably are
not science -- statistics and computer models. Science is about
understanding and statistics do not explain anything. Likewise,
computer
models are only as good as the understanding that goes into them.
Perhaps
the deepest point made in this book is that we have discovered
that we
really do not understand climate; we are running on empty
statistics and
false computer models."
--David E. Wojick, National Post, 10 December 2002
(1) DEEP FREEZE ALARMISM: A NEW COOLING SCARE IS EMERGING (&
EXPECT MORE
DOOM-MONGERING TO COME)
The Philidelphia Inquirer, 8 December 2002
(2) NASA TREE-RING STUDY REVEALS LONG HISTORY OF EL NINO
Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
(3) SATELLITE TO MEASURE ICE SHEETS
San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 December 2002
(4) WHAT'S HAPPENING TO THE CLIMATE OF THE ARCTIC?
CO2 Science Magazine, 11 December 2002
(5) ARCTIC SEA ICE: HAS IT THINNED AS DRAMATICALLY AS THEY SAY IT
HAS?
CO2 Science Magazine, 11 December 2002
(6) COULD CHANGES IN SOLAR ACTIVITY BE DRIVING CHANGES IN GLOBAL
PRECEPITATION?
CO2 Science Magazine, 11 December 2002
(7) TAKEN BY STORM: THE TROUBLED SCIENCE, POLICY AND POLITICS OF
GLOBAL
WARMING
National Post, 10 December 2002
(8) WHY ENERGY CONSERVATION FAILS
The Heartland Institute, November 2002
(9) COLD SPELL HITS NEW RECORD IN GERMANY: COLDEST TEMPERATURES
IN POTSDAM
SINCE RECORDS BEGAN
Die Welt, 10 December 2002
(10) CANADA RATIFIES KYOTO
John-Daly.com, 11 December 2002
(11) AND FINALLY: SURPRISE, SURPRISE AS EUROPE IS STRUGGLING TO
MEET KYOTO
TARGETS
Space Daily, 10 December 2002
======================
(1) DEEP FREEZE ALARMISM: A NEW COOLING SCARE IS EMERGING (&
EXPECT MORE
DOOM-MONGERING TO COME)
>From The Philidelphia Inquirer, 8 December 2002
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/2002/12/08/news/front/4689103.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
By Anthony R. Wood
Inquirer Staff Writer
AFTER MILD WINTERS, A POSSIBLE SEA CHANGE
Som say a freshwater crimp in the Gulf Stream could bring a
sudden shift to
biting cold.
Scientists have been warning that the Earth is slowly heating up,
that the
recent run of gentle winters in the United States is no fluke,
but the
warm-up to the big meltdown.
Now, however, comes a chilling prediction from some of the same
experts.
Before the climate gets balmier, they say, it could take a sudden
turn
toward the frigid - and stay that way for decades, if not
centuries.
In the Northeast, subzero temperatures could become standard
winter fare,
filling rivers with ice chunks, cutting short the growing season,
and
altering bird migrations. The cold and snow of the last week
would feel like
spring break.
Behind that brutal scenario is a baffling ocean phenomenon that
experts have
watched with rising angst: an expanding mass of freshwater in the
usually
salty North Atlantic that has spread alarmingly in the last seven
years. It
now reaches south from Greenland to just off the coast of the
Carolinas, an
area of 15 million square miles.
If the buildup continues, they say, it could impede the Gulf
Stream, a major
climate-maker that transports warm air to northern latitudes in
winter. Were
that critical current to be slowed by the freshwater, let alone
stopped,
average winter temperatures in the Northeastern United States and
in Western
Europe could abruptly plummet 10 degrees - a change not
experienced by
anyone alive today. A five-degree drop would be in store for the
rest of the
States.
Exactly when it might occur, scientists generally are loath to
speculate.
"None of us could tell you whether that event happens next
year or 100 years
from now," said Raymond W. Schmitt Jr., senior scientist at
the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, which has taken the
lead in
studying the freshwater pool.
Researchers find themselves toeing a fine line between informing
the public
and setting off a panic, Schmitt added. The U.N. committee on
global warming
has put out the reassuring word that "such a shutdown is
unlikely by 2100."
But John Gagosian, head of Woods Hole, had not even cold comfort
to offer in
a recent paper.
"In just the past year, we have seen ominous signs that we
may be headed
toward a potentially dangerous threshold," Gagosian wrote.
"If we cross it,
Earth's climate could switch gears and jump very rapidly - not
gradually -
into a completely different mode of operation."
One climate scientist suspects the Gulf Stream already is slowing
down. At a
time when other glaciers around the world are in retreat, the
Scandinavian
glacier has been growing. Andrew Weaver, of the University of
Victoria,
British Columbia, says it may be the result of less warm air
reaching that
far corner of the North Atlantic.
The prospect of a deep freeze, whether sooner or later, so
concerns the
British government that it is sinking $30 million into figuring
out what's
going on in The Pond. For while no one disputes the freshening is
real, no
one is sure why it is happening.
Some researchers believe that, ironically, global warming could
be to blame,
that melting Greenland glaciers and Arctic sea ice could be
diluting the
salt water of the North Atlantic. Others theorize it could be a
phase in a
natural cycle, one that ice-core evidence suggests might have
happened
several times in the last 100,000 years - and perhaps as recently
as
America's colonial era.
Oceans are turbulent, chaotic places, and their circulation is at
least as
complex as the atmosphere's.
The Gulf Stream, which originates in the Caribbean, is no
exception.
Oceanographers typically describe it as part of a "conveyor
belt," because
in order to keep the current moving, the cold, salty water in the
North
Atlantic must sink beneath it. That creates a void that is filled
by the
rush of more Gulf Stream water. And so it moves north-northeast
toward
Iceland at about 5 m.p.h., warming the overlying atmosphere for
more than
2,000 miles.
The heated air moderates the frigid blasts out of Canada before
they can
reach London, Paris or Rome. Without the Gulf Stream, London
would feel like
Montreal, but gloomier.
Fresher water is a threat to the conveyor because it is lighter
and sinks so
slowly that the Gulf Stream could sputter and even stop.
"If you don't sink that [cold] water and move it into the
south, there's no
reason for the Gulf Stream to move the warm water to the
north," said James
Wright, a Rutgers University paleoceanographer. The current
"would turn
toward Portugal and go to the Canary Islands."
Even subtle changes in salinity can have a substantial effect on
the rate at
which water sinks, said Weaver, of the University of Victoria. On
average, a
gallon of seawater contains 4.7 ounces of salt. Even the freshest
water in
the ocean still has about 4.2 ounces per gallon - far from
potable, but
fresh enough to potentially affect the Gulf Stream.
Conveyor-belt disruptions and sudden climate changes are nothing
new - only
the realization that they have occurred, says Richard B. Alley, a
professor
of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University.
Conventional wisdom used to hold that climate change, like aging,
happened
gradually. In the last 15 years, however, researchers studying
ice cores
dating back 100,000 years have documented sudden shifts.
"Large, abrupt and widespread climate changes occurred
repeatedly in the
past across most of the Earth, and many followed closely after
freshening of
the North Atlantic," said Alley, who is also chairman of the
National
Research Council's Committee on Abrupt Climate Change, which
published a
report last spring.
Perhaps the most famous of these was the "Younger
Dryas" event, so named for
the Arctic shrub that appeared in temperate European climes
during a
dramatic cooldown about 12,000 years ago, 6,000 years after the
last Ice
Age. And it happened in a hurry, a matter of just a few years.
Changes in the Gulf Stream also are suspect in the onset of the
so-called
Little Ice Age, which began in the 15th century and ended about
1850. That
coincided with Gen. George Washington's encampment at Valley
Forge during
the fatally frigid winter of 1777-78; the winter of 1779-80 was
even worse.
It also encompassed the era of Washington Irving and frosty
images of
skaters on the lower Hudson in December. No one skates there
these days.
While abrupt shifts may be nothing new, this one would be
unprecedented in
one important respect: Science is trying to get to the bottom of
it. But
even as researchers measure the freshwater mass by dropping
instrument packs
into the ocean, one thing is certain: They won't be able to stop
it.
Any human effort to control the buildup, Weaver said, would be
"like one
person standing on a railroad track trying to stop a train."
© 2001 inquirer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
===========
(2) NASA TREE-RING STUDY REVEALS LONG HISTORY OF EL NINO
>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>
John Bluck
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field,
Calif. Dec. 9, 2002
Phone: 650/604-5026 or 650/604-9000
E-mail: jbluck@mail.arc.nasa.gov
RELEASE: 02-131AR
NASA TREE-RING STUDY REVEALS LONG HISTORY OF EL NINO
El Nino is not a new weather phenomenon, according to a recent
NASA study
that looks 750 years into the past using tree-ring records.
Utilizing special computer techniques, a NASA scientist has
linked tree-ring
widths -- a natural record of local and regional climate
conditions -- with
sea surface temperatures (SST) to compile a record that looks
back
three-quarters of a millennium, indicating that El Nino caused
heavy rain in
some places in South America and droughts in other areas.
"We feed the computer model with past tree-ring data, and
this model 'hind
casts' past sea surface temperatures," said Hector D'Antoni,
a scientist at
NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.
"We can go back in
time and reconstruct some of the factors controlling
ecosystems." An
ecosystem is a system composed of living organisms and their
environment.
"The hypothesis I had all along was that the El Nino
Southern Oscillation
(ENSO) is not a new component of the global climate system, and
that ENSO
effects on South America were not new or
negligible," he said. "Sea surface temperatures of both
the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans in tropical and subtropical locations have a
strong influence
on the temperate forests of South America. Therefore, one can
expect to find
some 'signal' of these drivers in the collection of tree rings
over a period
of time."
"Precipitation is related to the ocean-atmosphere interface
and, in South
America, predominantly dominated by the Atlantic Ocean," he
said. "The El
Nino ENSO affects these patterns in four regions with large
increases of
precipitation (Ecuador, Argentina), drought (Northern Amazonia)
and higher
temperature (Ecuador, eastern Brazil). These changes affect tree
growth in
these and other regions of South America."
D'Antoni developed a connection between rate of tree growth and
sea surface
temperatures using neural network software models. Using these
models, he
estimated past sea surface temperatures based only on tree ring
widths.
Wider tree rings indicate more tree growth. Precipitation and
temperature
control much of this growth.
Neural network models 'learn' by observing patterns in today's
world and
then make precise estimates. D'Antoni obtained tree-ring data
produced by
scientists who study the annual growth rings in trees. These
researchers
collected data from 25 sites, largely in the sub-Antarctic region
of South
America. With computer models, tree-ring width records and sea
surface
temperature data, D'Antoni established a pattern for the last few
hundred
years. When linked with sea surface temperatures, tree-ring
growth patterns are proving to be
exceptional starting points for researchers who are
reconstructing past and
predicting future climates.
D'Antoni and co-investigator Ante Mlinarevic of San Jose State
University,
San Jose, Calif., reconstructed past sea surface temperatures of
the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans for the period 1246 to 1995.
"The Atlantic SST appears more stable around 24.5 Celsius
(76.1 degrees
Fahrenheit); the Pacific past SST varies in a much larger range
around 21
degrees Celsius (69.8 degrees Fahrenheit) and
reflects ENSO episodes in the past that are longer than the
instrumentally
recorded ones," D'Antoni said.
One record kept by archeologist Jorge Marcos, Polytechnic School
of the
Littoral, Guayaquil, Ecuador, mentions 'albarradas'
(archeological and small
historical dams) built by the people of
Ecuador and copied by the European conquerors, D'Antoni said.
Albarradas
turned the damaging effect of runoff during ENSO episodes into a
way of
replenishing the groundwater table and aiding
agriculture on the dry coast of Ecuador, according to D'Antoni.
The older albarradas are 2,270 years old, according to
radiocarbon dating.
These dams were in extensive use 1,000 years ago, and some
albarradas are
still being used.
D'Antoni stressed that records such as those of Marcos provide
'circumstantial' evidence of the historical ENSOs. "Our
reconstruction
suggests that there were many ENSOs, some very intense ones, in
the last 750
years," D'Antoni said. "All of these experiences amount
to a stronger
support for prediction of future changes, which is one of NASA's
goals."
While his findings eventually could lead to attempts by
scientists to make
long-range forecasts of levels of rainfall, humidity and other
consequences
of major climate changes, D'Antoni said he is still conducting
basic science
and is not ready to attempt climate change predictions. His
immediate
objective is simply to learn more about Earth's climate, he said.
Publication size images are available at:
http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/releases/2002/02images/tree_rings_pix/tree_rings.html
===========
(3) SATELLITE TO MEASURE ICE SHEETS
>From San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 December 2002
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20021210-9999_1n10ice.html
By Bruce Lieberman
SAN FRANCISCO - Over the past year, melting ice sheets in
Greenland and
disintegrating ice shelves in Antartica have increasingly alarmed
scientists.
Why it is happening, to what extent it may continue, and what
impact it may
have on ocean levels remain important questions for
climatologists and other
scientists gathered here to discuss the latest research on global
warming
and rapid climate change.
A new satellite, called ICESat and scheduled for launch Dec. 19
from
Vandenberg Air Force Base, is expected to help them understand
more about
the balance between the winter storms that add to ice sheets and
the summer
warming that thins their edges and breaks huge regions apart.
Scientists suspect that global warming, caused by a rise in
greenhouse gases
induced in part by human activity, contributes to the melting of
land and
sea ice.
But they do not yet know enough about the natural variations in
the mass of
ice sheets to determine the extent to which humans may be
accelerating the
melting.
ICESat, which stands for Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite,
will use
lasers to measure tiny changes in the elevation of polar ice
sheets on land
and over the ocean.
Scientists at UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La
Jolla are
involved in the project.
"The time is really right to try to take a comprehensive
look," said ICESat
program scientist Waleed Abdalati during a briefing yesterday at
the annual
meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
"Big things are going on, and there is a relationship
between these and
current changes in the climate," he said.
Observations made last summer revealed unprecedented ice-sheet
melting over
the Arctic Ocean. Summer melting typically shrinks ice sheets to
a low of
2.4 million square miles. Last summer, that low fell to 2 million
square
miles, scientists have reported.
NASA conducts laser surveys of ice sheets using instruments
aboard aircraft,
but the new satellite is designed to cover much more terrain more
quickly
and accurately.
The $232.1 million satellite, built by Colorado-based Ball
Aerospace and
Technologies Corp. under contract with Goddard Space Flight
Center, will
orbit Earth 373 miles up.
Using an instrument called Geoscience Laser Altimeter System, or
GLAS, the
satellite will shoot short and rapid pulses of light toward the
surface of
the Earth.
The reflected laser pulses will enable it to make elevation
readings
accurate to 15 centimeters. ICESat will orbit for three to five
years.
The satellite's laser instrument will also measure the elevation
of clouds
and air pollution - both are important to studies of climate
change - and
make topographical measurements of the Earth to study erosion and
other
environmental changes.
"It really is cutting edge," said Bernard Minster, a
researcher at Scripps
and one of eight members of the science team behind the mission.
Scientists do not expect the huge ice sheets of Greenland and
Antarctica to
melt anytime soon. But they hold enough fresh water to raise
global sea
levels by 260 feet if they melted completely.
© Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
=============
(4) WHAT'S HAPPENING TO THE CLIMATE OF THE ARCTIC?
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 11 December 2002
http://www.co2science.org/edit/v5_edit/v5n50edit.htm
A long succession of climate models has consistently suggested
that
CO2-induced global warming should be amplified in earth's polar
regions and
that the first signs of man's predicted impact on the world's
weather should
thus be manifest there. Many people have consequently
accepted
recently-reported high temperatures from various parts of the
Arctic as
evidence of the validity of contemporary climate model
predictions and an
indisputable sign that the dreaded climatic effects of mankind's
CO2
emissions have in very fact arrived at the world's
doorstep. Actual
temperature data, however, tell a vastly different story.
Following the recent release of Russian meteorological
observations poleward
of 62°N, Polyakov et al. (2002) created an Arctic-wide
temperature history
that runs from 1875 to 2001, based on data obtained from 75 land
meteorological stations. Over this 126-year period, their record
depicts two
major intervals of warming, each of approximately 15 years
duration. When
annual temperatures are expressed as six-year running means, the
first of
these warmings starts at about 1922 and the other at about 1985.
The initial
warming is by far the more dramatic of the two, with temperatures
rising by
nearly 2°C, while temperatures rise by not quite 1°C in the
second. In
addition, the most recent six-year mean temperature is 0.2°C
less than the
peak analogous temperature achieved at the end of the first
warming. So what
is one to conclude from these observations?
First of all, as we have long claimed for the entire world [see
our
Editorial of 1 July 2000: There Has Been No Global Warming for
the Past 70
Years], the Arctic - which according to essentially all climate
models is
supposed to be the harbinger of things to come for the rest of
the world -
is not yet as warm as it was in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
In fact,
because temperatures were so high for so long back then, the
authors report
that linear regression trends calculated from the 1920s to the
present show
a small but statistically significant cooling tendency.
Starting all the way back at beginning of the 20th century,
however - at the
time when Mann et al. (1999) claim the great
"unprecedented" warming of the
past millennium began - Polyakov et al.'s Arctic temperature data
do produce
a subsequent warming. However, for the period 1901 to 1997, they
note that
the upward temperature trend of the Arctic calculated from their
data is
"statistically indistinguishable" from the upward
temperature trend of the
entire Northern Hemisphere calculated from the data of Jones et
al. (1999).
Hence, as they most appropriately note, this similarity
"does not support
amplified warming in polar regions predicted by models (IPCC,
2001)," and
especially does it not support a polar warming that is amplified
by a factor
of two to three, as most models predict.
So why have the world's best climate models erred so egregiously
in this
most common of their predictions? Polyakov et al. suggest that
the models'
missing of the mark may be due to the insignificance of what
their creators
ironically suggest is the cause of the supposed polar warming
amplification,
i.e., strong positive feedback induced by the melting of snow and
sea ice.
They note, for example, that in addition to analyzing temperature
records
they examined long-term records of observations of fast-ice
thickness and
ice extent from the Kara, Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi Seas,
finding
that "long-term trends are small and generally statistically
insignificant,
while trends for shorter records are not indicative of the
long-term
tendencies, in agreement with the trends of air
temperature."
In concluding their brief review, Polyakov et al. remark that
"if long-term
trends are accepted as a valid measure of climate change" -
and, we wonder,
what else could possibly qualify as an alternative? - "then
the air
temperature and ice data do not support the proposed polar
amplification of
global warming." They also note there are some other
independent indications
that "the importance of the ice- and snow-albedo feedbacks
may be
exaggerated (Robock, 1983), which may explain why the
amplification of
global warming is not found in the Arctic."
Clearly, as Polyakov et al. suggest in summation, "the
Arctic poses severe
challenges to generating credible model-based projections of
climate
change," and until there are models that can pass its
reality check, there
would appear to be little reason to give them any credence.
Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso
References
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2001. Climate Change
2001, The
Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group 1 to the
Third Assessment
Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
edited by
J.T. Houghton, Y. Ding, D.J. Griggs, M. Noguer, P.J. van der
Linden, and D.
Xiaosu. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Jones, P.D., New, M., Parker, D.E., Martin, S. and Rigor, I.G.
1999. Surface
air temperature and its changes over the past 150 years.
Reviews of
Geophysics 37: 173-199.
Mann, M.E., Bradley, R.S. and Hughes, M.K. 1999. Northern
Hemisphere
temperatures during the past millennium: Inferences,
uncertainties, and
limitations. Geophysical Research Letters 26: 759-762.
Polyakov, I., Akasofu, S-I., Bhatt, U., Colony, R., Ikeda, M.,
Makshtas, A.,
Swingley, C., Walsh, D. and Walsh, J. 2002. Trends and variations
in Arctic
climate system. EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical
Union 83: 547-548.
Robock, A. 1983. Ice and snow feedbacks and the latitudinal and
seasonal
distribution of climate sensitivity. Journal of the Atmospheric
Sciences 40:
986-997.
Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change
=============
(5) ARCTIC SEA ICE: HAS IT THINNED AS DRAMATICALLY AS THEY SAY IT
HAS?
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 11 December 2002
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2002/v5n50c3.htm
Reference
Holloway, G. and Sou, T. 2002. Has Arctic Sea Ice Rapidly
Thinned? Journal
of Climate 15: 1691-1701.
Background
The authors note that "reports based on submarine sonar data
[Rothrock et
al., 1999; Wadhams and Davis, 2000] have suggested Arctic sea ice
has
thinned nearly by half in recent decades." They
further note that these
reports were widely cited by both the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate
Change (IPCC: Houghton et al., 2001) and by the popular media,
who at the
time of the reports' appearance were whipped into a frenzy over
the subject
by the climate alarmists' claim that humanity was responsible for
the
thinning because it was caused by global warming that was induced
by
anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
What was done
In a study designed to rationally evaluate these claims, the
authors
explored "how observations, theory, and modeling work
together to clarify
perceived changes to Arctic sea ice," incorporating data
from "the
atmosphere, rivers, and ocean along with dynamics expressed in an
ocean-ice-snow model."
What was learned
Based on a number of different data-fed model runs, the authors
report that
for the last half of the past century, "no linear trend [in
Arctic sea ice
volume] over 50 years is appropriate," noting that their
results indicate
"increasing volume to the mid-1960s, decadal variability
without significant
trend from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, then a loss of volume
from the
mid-1980s to the mid-1990s." The net effect of this
behavior, in their
words, was that "the volume estimated in 2000 is close to
the volume
estimated in 1950."
What it means
The authors' analysis suggests that the earlier inferred rapid
thinning of
Arctic sea ice was, as they put it, "unlikely," due to
problems arising from
"undersampling." They also report that "varying
winds that readily
redistribute Arctic ice create a recurring pattern whereby ice
shifts
between the central Arctic and peripheral regions, especially in
the
Canadian sector," and that the "timing and tracks of
the submarine surveys
missed this dominant mode of variability."
References
Houghton, J.T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D.J., Noguer, M., van der
Linden, P.J.,
Xiaosu, D., Maskell, K. and Johnson, C.A. (Eds.). 2001. Climate
Change 2001:
The Scientific Basis. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK.
Rothrock, D.A., Yu, Y. and Maykut, G.A. 1999. Thinning of the
Arctic sea ice
cover. Geophysics Research Letters 26: 3469-3472.
Wadhams, P. and Davis, N.R. 2000. Further evidence of ice
thinning in the
Arctic Ocean. Geophysical Research Letters 27: 3973-3975.
Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
==========
(6) COULD CHANGES IN SOLAR ACTIVITY BE DRIVING CHANGES IN GLOBAL
PRECEPITATION?
>From CO2 Science Magazine, 11 December 2002
http://www.co2science.org/subject/p/summaries/precipsolar.htm
How much of an influence the sun exerts on earth's climate has
long been a
topic of heated discussion in the area of global climate change
(Franks,
2002). The primary reason for differing opinions on the subject
derives from
the fact that although numerous studies have demonstrated
significant
correlations between certain measures of solar activity and
various climatic
phenomena (Reid, 1991, 1997, 1999, 2000), the magnitude of the
variable
solar radiative forcing reported in these studies is generally so
small it
is difficult to see how it could possibly produce climatic
effects of the
magnitude observed. Supporters of solar effects theories counter
by
contending that various positive feedback mechanisms may amplify
the initial
solar perturbation to the extent that significant changes in
climate do
indeed result. In this summary, we highlight some of the
recent scientific
literature that demonstrates the viability of such solar linkages
with
precipitation.
Many solar-climate studies utilize tree-ring records of 14C as a
measure of
solar activity, because solar activity (including variations in
the number
of sunspots and the brightness of the sun) influences the
production of
atmospheric 14C, such that periods of higher solar activity yield
a lower
production and atmospheric burden of 14C (Perry and Hsu, 2000).
This being
the case, it can be appreciated that as trees remove carbon from
the air and
sequester it in their tissues, they are recording a history of
solar
activity that could be influencing earth's atmosphere-ocean
system. Thus,
the history of 14C contained in tree rings has been examined by a
number of
authors as a proxy indicator of solar activity and compared with
various
indices of climate.
As a good example of this type of work, Neff et al. (2001)
investigated the
relationship between a 14C tree-ring record and a proxy record of
monsoon
rainfall intensity recorded in calcite delta18O data obtained
from a
stalagmite in northern Oman for the period 9,600-6,100 years
ago. They
reported finding an "extremely strong" relationship
between the two data
sets; and the presence of this strong correlation, coupled with
the fact
that a spectral analysis yielded similar periodicities in both
data sets,
led them to conclude there is "solid evidence" that
both the 14C and
delta18O signals are responding to solar forcing.
In another type of tree-ring study, this time from northeastern
Mongolia,
Pederson et al. (2001) also report "possible evidence for
solar influences."
For the period 1651-1995, they reconstructed annual precipitation
and
streamflow histories for this region from tree-ring
chronologies. Then,
they subjected their data to spectral analysis, which revealed
significant
periodicities around 12 and 20-24 years that are believed to be
solar-induced.
Moving to equatorial east Africa, Verschuren et al. (2000)
developed a
decadal-scale history of rainfall and drought for the past
thousand years
based on lake-level and salinity fluctuations of a small
crater-lake basin
in Kenya, after which they compared this history with an equally
long record
of atmospheric 14C production. The results of their
analysis showed that a
relatively wet period from AD 1270 to 1850 was interrupted by
three periods
of prolonged dryness: 1390-1420, 1560-1625 and 1760-1840, all
three of which
episodes were "broadly coeval with phases of high solar
radiation," while
"the intervening periods of increased moisture were coeval
with phases of
low solar radiation."
Nearby in Europe, a review of the relationship of extreme weather
events to
climate during the Holocene also implicates solar forcing as the
factor
responsible for above-average rainfall during the Little Ice
Age. There,
according to Starkel (2002), continuous rains and high-intensity
downpours
that coincided with periods of reduced solar activity were major
problems
that often led to severe flooding.
Although a realistic physical mechanism for a solar-induced
precipitation
effect has been difficult to identify, numerous studies have
suggested that
the increased (decreased) cosmic ray flux at the solar minimum
(maximum)
causes increased (decreased) ice-nucleation, precipitation and
precipitation
efficiency at high geomagnetic latitudes and decreased
(increased)
ice-nucleation, precipitation and precipitation efficiency at low
geomagnetic latitudes. Hence, using cosmic ray data
recorded by
ground-based neutron monitors, global precipitation data from the
Climate
Predictions Center Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP)
project, and
estimates of monthly global moisture from the National Centers
for
Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis project, Kniveton and
Todd (2001)
set out to determine whether there is any empirical evidence to
support the
hypothesis that solar variability (determined by changes in
cosmic ray flux)
is linked to climate change (manifested by changes in
precipitation and
precipitation efficiency) over the period 1979-1999.
What the two scientists found was "evidence of a
statistically strong
relationship between cosmic ray flux, precipitation and
precipitation
efficiency over ocean surfaces at mid to high latitudes," as
variations in
both precipitation and precipitation efficiency for mid to high
latitudes
showed a close relationship in both phase and magnitude with
variations in
cosmic ray flux, varying 7-9% during the solar cycle of the
1980s. Other
potential factors that might explain the trends in precipitation
and
precipitation efficiency were ruled out due to poorer statistical
relationships between them and the precipitation parameters
investigated.
The study of Kniveton and Todd thus suggests that small changes
in solar
output can indeed produce significant changes in earth's climate.
Consequently, with empirical evidence mounting for a
solar-induced effect on
precipitation, and given the fact that the total magnetic flux
leaving the
sun has risen by a factor of 1.41 over the period 1964-1996 and
by a factor
of 2.3 since 1901 (Lockwood et al., 1999), climate modelers
should be paying
more attention to these phenomena and incorporating them into
their general
circulation models of the atmosphere; for it could well be that
much, if not
all, of the warming of the past century had its origins in solar
variability
and not the historical rise in the air's CO2 concentration.
Not
surprisingly, however, the Chambers et al. (1999) review of the
climate
models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to
predict
future greenhouse gas-induced global warming revealed such
solar-induced
processes to be inadequately represented and even ignored.
References
Chambers, F.M., Ogle, M.I. and Blackford, J.J. 1999.
Palaeoenvironmental
evidence for solar forcing of Holocene climate: linkages to solar
science.
Progress in Physical Geography 23: 181-204.
Franks, S.W. 2002. Assessing hydrological change:
deterministic general
circulation models or spurious solar correlation? Hydrological
Processes 16:
559-564.
Kniveton, D.R. and Todd, M.C. 2001. On the relationship of
cosmic ray flux
and precipitation. Geophysical Research Letters 28:
1527-1530.
Lockwood, M., Stamper, R. and Wild, M.N. 1999. A doubling of the
Sun's
coronal magnetic field during the past 100 years. Nature
399: 437-439.
Neff, U., Burns, S.J., Mangini, A., Mudelsee, M., Fleitmann, D
and Matter,
A. 2001. Strong coherence between solar variability and the
monsoon in Oman
between 9 and 6 kyr ago. Nature 411: 290-293.
Pederson, N., Jacoby, G.C., D'Arrigo, R.D., Cook, E.R. and
Buckley, B.M.
2001. Hydrometeorological reconstructions for northeastern
Mongolia derived
from tree rings: 1651-1995. Journal of Climate 14: 872-881.
Perry, C.A. and Hsu, K.J. 2000. Geophysical, archaeological, and
historical
evidence support a solar-output model for climate change.
Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences USA 97: 12433-12438.
Reid, G.C. 1991. Solar total irradiance variations and the global
sea
surface temperature record. Journal of Geophysical Research
96: 2835-2844.
Reid, G.C. 1997. Solar forcing of global climate change since the
17th
century. Climatic Change 37: 391-405.
Reid, G.C. 1999. Solar variability and its implications for the
human
environment. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics
61(1-2):
3-14.
Reid, G.C. 2000. Solar variability and the Earth's climate:
introduction and
overview. Space Science Reviews 94(1-2): 1-11.
Starkel, L. 2002. Change in the frequency of extreme
events as the
indicator of climatic change in the Holocene (in fluvial
systems).
Quaternary International 91: 25-32.
Verschuren, D., Laird, K.R. and Cumming, B.F. 2000. Rainfall and
drought in
equatorial east Africa during the past 1,100 years. Nature 403:
410-414.
Copyright © 2002. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change
=============
(7) TAKEN BY STORM: THE TROUBLED SCIENCE, POLICY AND POLITICS OF
GLOBAL
WARMING
>From National Post, 10 December 2002
http://www.nationalpost.com/utilities/story.html?id={C04D2820-8924-4F99-A9BB-DDDBF66B3775}
David E. Wojick
TAKEN BY STORM: THE TROUBLED SCIENCE, POLICY AND POLITICS OF
GLOBAL WARMING
by Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick Key Porter Books 320 pp.,
$26.95
- - -
Taken By Storm is a wonderful book -- unique, powerful and long
overdue in
the climate change debate. With the federal government
steamrolling the
Canadian people on the Kyoto Accord, anybody who cares should
read this
book. The reader must be warned, however, that this is a book
about science,
and the perversion of science. It is not a flashy exposé to be
finished in a
single rainy afternoon. Some parts of it are downright deep.
Depth is what makes Taken By Storm an important book. The
newspapers are
full of the climate change debate, and many of these stories
touch on the
science. They touch and then draw away, until the stock
paragraphs become
nauseatingly familiar and glaringly uninformative. This book
explains the
scientific issues. It explains them simply, yet accurately, if
that is all
you want. But if you really want to understand the issues, it
also explains
them in depth, to the point where you will need a textbook to go
further.
There is no other book like this.
But it is not a science book, or not just that, because climate
science is
indeed troubled. It has become mixed up with the in-crowd of
green politics
and policy, especially the Kyoto Accord movement, and this too is
explained
in depth. No one should complain about the 300-plus pages,
including a
detailed index that makes this a good reference book as well.
Climate
science, policy and politics is a vast, unhappy realm.
This is, of course, a climate change skeptic's book. Essex and
McKitrick are
leading Canadian skeptics, as well as distinguished scientists.
The
global-warming-scare crowd would never do a book like this,
because
simple-minded, one-paragraph science is the strength of the
scare. It is the
ammunition for shotgun politics and policy.
In fact, a lot of the scare, and so a lot of this book, is about
two things
that arguably are not science -- statistics and computer models.
Science is
about understanding and statistics do not explain anything.
Likewise,
computer models are only as good as the understanding that goes
into them.
Perhaps the deepest point made in this book is that we have
discovered that
we really do not understand climate; we are running on empty
statistics and
false computer models.
Science is funny that way. You can go into a problem thinking
that you
understand it, then after great, highly creative exertion,
determine that
you do not. But now you know what you don't know, and that is the
heart of
progress. This is actually typical for smaller problems, and such
it is with
climate change as well. After a decade of intensive research we
now know
that climate changes in ways, and for reasons, that we do not
understand.
There are lots of theories of course, more all the time, and that
is
precisely the point. Climate science has blossomed, but any basis
for a
policy to prevent climate change has withered and died in the
process. This
is a new result, a blockbuster. Essex and McKitrick explain it
with clarity,
care and patience.
The consequences of this new view are profound. We used to think
that the
climate was naturally stable, so changes had to be forced by
human activity.
We now know that natural internal changes can account for
everything we
think we see going on. (It also turns out that what we thought we
saw going
on may not even be there, which is a far deeper problem.) The
computer
models we are acting on are based on this erroneous assumption of
natural
stability. It is not just that the models are inaccurate, they
are
profoundly false.
Essex and McKitrick put it this way: "The idea of 'forcing'
has been forced
onto the system. This language suggests a kind of metaphysical
idea about
climate change that has a mechanics reminiscent of the physics of
ancient
Greece. The climate state only moves when it is 'forced,' and
when the
forcing stops, the change stops too. But climate change is always
happening,
and it needs no external causes to keep it going." In other
words, human
beings may well have nothing to do with any observed climate
change, or with
any future climate change. Of this we are now certain.
Unfortunately, the climate change politics and policy boat set
sail at the
same time the science boat did, about a decade ago. It too has
made great
progress, but its work has all been based on science that is now
known to be
false. Whether we can get it back on course remains to be seen.
The wrong
course has become dramatically institutionalized, for reasons the
authors
describe in considerable detail. History shows repeatedly that
once a
political apparatus gets up a head of steam, the truth may cease
be an
issue. Woe to us if this happens again.
Happily, Taken By Storm does a good job of separating this
unfortunate
policy picture from the really interesting science stuff, a lot
of which is
quite delightful and presented with great humour. One meets the
poodle
attractor (a fluffy form of chaos), for example, and also T-Rex
and the
Bleeps (not a rock band). Professor Thermos teaches a deep lesson
on global
temperature (there isn't any), then T-Rex plays hockey with tree
rings, and
so it goes. There is a lot of physics and math, but no equations,
and a lot
of economics too. One could read this book just to learn how
climate works
and what difference it makes.
In fact, my one criticism of this book is that it may be too
jolly. It tends
to make the people who are promoting the Kyoto Accord look like
idiots, but
they are not. They are cunning and artful. What is idiotic is the
situation.
David Wojick is an independent climate science journalist and
policy analyst
who resides in Virginia and Ontario. He runs a listserv
(http://www.climatechangedebate.org)
that debates climate change science. He
may be reached at dwojick@climatechangedebate.org
© Copyright 2002 National Post
================
(8) WHY ENERGY CONSERVATION FAILS
>From The Heartland Institute, November 2002
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=10651
Book review by Jay Lehr
Why Energy Conservation Fails
by Herbert Inhaber, PhD
Quorum Books, paperback, 237 pages
Why Energy Conservation Fails is, in many ways, the most readable
book on
economics you will ever read. It is so innovative and fascinating
in its
approach that it is a page-turner.
Dr. Inhaber uses basic economic theory coupled with our
well-known human
nature to prove in dozens of ways that no artificial coercive
strategy aimed
at conserving anything can ever succeed. Through simple prose,
supplemented
with detailed illustrations and ample calculations, he makes his
premise as
certain as the law of gravity.
In making his case, Inhaber stands on the shoulders of giants of
the past.
These truths have been illustrated and handed down for centuries
... and yet
the folly of coercive conservation runs rampant even today.
Sadly, those who
do not study the failures of the past are destined to repeat
them, and that
we do again and again.
Over the past two decades, Americans have been subjected to an
unprecedented
barrage of government edicts telling them to save energy, water,
natural
resources, and many other substances.
If we trade in a large car for a small one, surely we use less
gasoline ...
or do we? If cars are smaller and driving is cheaper, families
may own two
cars instead of one, and they will drive more miles with their
cars. The
counterproductive end result is that people will ultimately use
more
gasoline. Simple economic reasoning makes it clear: When the
price of a
commodity falls, more of it will be used than if its price had
remained
constant.
Conservation on a national scale does not and cannot exist. In
the case of
gasoline, its use has risen, not fallen, since the imposition of
strict
mileage standards in the late 1970s. According to those who
advocated those
laws, gasoline use should have declined.
In our homes, when we attempt to save electricity through
improved
insulation, our electric bill goes down ... so we tend to use
more
electricity in other ways, such as by raising our indoor
temperature in the
winter or lowering our indoor temperature in the summer.
Inhaber points out that Karl Marx made a similar mistake when he
reasoned
capitalism would fail when production efficiency increased,
thereby making
many employees redundant. He failed to see that with increased
efficiency
comes a decline in the effective price of a service or commodity
and that in
the face of a lower price, increasing demand will require more
workers.
The statues of Karl Marx have come down all around the world, but
the
conservationists who say that saving a kilowatt hour here and
there will
reduce the total amount of energy we use still have a loyal
following.
Inhaber feels strongly that their efforts should be-and can
be-thwarted by
teaching simple economics to coercive conservationists.
Inhaber explains clearly how conservationists have always assumed
that man
would run out of this or that resource, though it never happens.
Why?
Because brain-power followed by improved technology leads to
better ways to
find and refine everything or to replace it with even better
substitute
materials in even greater abundance. Fiberglass, for instance, is
formed
from silica dioxide, the most abundant mineral in the Earth's
crust.
While many of us try to save energy at home, we may imagine waste
occurs
frequently at the industrial level. At home we replace light
bulbs when they
burn out. In a factory, bulbs are replaced on a timed schedule to
coincide
with the average life of a bulb. Many perfectly good bulbs are
discarded in
this way ... but a tremendous amount of labor, and thus cost, is
saved.
Waste is in the eye of the beholder. For a manufacturing company,
labor is
too valuable to be wasted.
These examples are but a small illustration of the meticulous and
comprehensive manner in which Dr. Inhaber dissembles the
ill-fated
do-gooders' desire to conserve a wide variety of resources that
never were,
are not now, and never will be in short supply. They overlook at
every turn
man's indomitable intellectual creativity, which allows him to
expand or
replace every imaginable resource.
Dr. Jay Lehr is Science Director for The Heartland Institute.
============
(9) COLD SPELL HITS NEW RECORD IN GERMANY: COLDEST TEMPERATURES
IN POTSDAM
SINCE RECORDS BEGAN
Kälterekorde in Deutschland
http://www.welt.de/data/2002/12/10/24076.html
Hamburg/Offenbach - In Deutschland jagt ein Kälterekord
den nächsten: In
der Nacht sanken die Temperaturen vielerorts auf historische
Tiefstände im
Dezember. Mit minus 17,5 Grad war es im Harz besonders eisig. In
Harzgerode
und auf dem Fichtelberg wurden minus 15 Grad gemessen. In Hamburg
sackte das
Thermometer auf minus 10,5 Grad. Das ist der kälteste 10.
Dezember seit 35
Jahren. Mit einer Höchsttemperatur von minus 7,1 Grad war der
Montag der
kälteste 9. Dezember in Potsdam seit Beginn der Aufzeichnungen
des Deutschen
Wetterdienstes 1893. "Fast überall war es kälter als minus
zehn Grad", sagte
Corina Schube vom Deutschen Wetterdienst in Leipzig.
=============
(10) CANADA RATIFIES KYOTO
>From John-Daly.com, 11 December 2002
www.john-daly.com
So they finally did it. As expected, the Canadian federal
parliament voted
195-77 for ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. The opposition
parties
opposed the treaty and they now stand to gain electoral support
at the
expense of the governing Liberals once the full cost of Kyoto
sinks into the
voting public.
Down the political track, some Canadian politicians might attempt
to hide
behind the excuse that he/she had not been warned that this would
be a
costly exercise in futility for the Canadian taxpayer. There has
been
warning aplenty, and now they have to confront something much
more difficult
than merely signing a piece of paper.
They now have to come up with the complex technical solutions and
enabling
legislation needed to fulfil the demands of the protocol, that
Canada reduce
its emissions by 6% on 1990 levels - and do so within the next 10
years.
Canada's emissions are already around 20% above 1990 levels, so a
cut of
20-30% on current levels will involve nothing short of a dramatic
retraction
of the Canadian economy to see those targets fulfilled.
And the climatic impact will be nil.
Mere media propaganda, so successful in selling the protocol to
parliament,
will be of no help in securing practical compliance of the whole
of Canadian
industry and society. It's one thing for politicians to sign an
ill-conceived contract - the small print and implications of
which they have
shown little understanding of - but it will be quite something
else to force
every citizen, every provincial government, every company, every
driver of a
car, every home-owner heating their home, every worker worried
about their
job, every taxpayer, to comply with the draconian measures which
are now
required to fulfil the terms of the Kyoto Protocol. It will take
a lot more
than government exhortations, pleadings, or propaganda.
The initial effect of implementing Kyoto measures on business
will be for
many of them to close their operations in Canada and move across
the border
to the U.S., leaving behind unemployed Canadians.
There is but one comfort for Canada - this contract expires in 10
years.
=============
(11) AND FINALLY: SURPRISE, SURPRISE AS EUROPE IS STRUGGLING TO
MEET KYOTO
TARGETS
>From Space Daily, 10 December 2002
http://www.spacedaily.com/2002/021206134504.sajp7dxi.html
PARIS (AFP) Dec 06, 2002
The European Union is falling short of meeting targets for
cutting
greenhouse-gas pollution under the Kyoto Protocol, the UN climate
pact that
the EU championed last year after it was ditched by Washington, a
study
warned on Friday.
"Existing measures will not be sufficient for the EU to
reach its Kyoto
target," the report issued by the European Environment
Agency (EAA) said
bluntly.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, the 15 EU members are required to cut
combined
emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and five other heat-trapping
gases by
eight percent overall in the years 2008-2012 as compared to their
1990
levels.
But the projections run by the Copenhagen-based EU agency show
that, on the
basis of existing measures, the 15 are on track for a total cut
of only 4.7
percent.
Most of that cut is attributable to Britain, Germany and Sweden,
which have
made far deeper reductions than they are honoured to make under a
"burden-sharing" agreement whereby the EU members
assigned individual
targets among themselves.
They made the reductions because of the closure of inefficient,
coal-burning
plants and power stations in the former East Germany and the
conversion in
Britain of coal-fired power stations to gas, which releases far
less CO2 for
the same output.
"If these three countries merely met their burden-sharing
targets instead of
'over-complying', the overall EU emissions decrease by 2010 would
be
minimal, at only 0.6 percent," the EAA said.
The worst offenders are Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Spain,
which in 2010
will exceed their individual Kyoto targets according to
calculations based
on pollution-curbing measures they have implemented so far....
Copyright 2002, Agence France-Presse.
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