Warming, Schmarming: Why the world is not coming to an end.

During a recent hike with a friend in the Highlands we got into a discussion about climate change and global warming. He was quite adamant that man’s carbon dioxide output was endangering the entire planet would lead to significant warming and/or climate change – essentially what we hear in the mainstream press about melting glaciers, rising sea levels, increased hurricanes and floods, Australia burning up while Britain freezes. But is this Doomsday scenario correct? While even the mainstream press was willing to concede that the last Hollywood blockbuster disaster film went a bit over the top, how realistic are even the more moderate Kyoto crowd? The answer, I think, is not very.

I have looked into the issue of global warming before, but this weekend’s discussion renewed my interest in the subject. Here are some of the things which I have found:

1) The Earth’s climate has always and will always fluctuate. The main trend in the last several hundred years has been a slight warming. This is nothing about which to worry. Although the Earth has seen major climatic changes such as ice ages and the like, the chances of one of these dramatic events occurring during our lifetime is minute, as is the chances the Earth will be hit by a meteorite or Yellowstone National Park exploding. In the last few thousand years the world was warm during the heyday of the Roman empire, cooled during the early mediaeval period, warmed significantly during the High Middle Ages (Vikings were able to farm and raise cattle on Greenland) or the Mediaeval Warm Period, then cooled again during the Little Ice Age from 1350 to about 1860, and has warmed ever since. Actually the warmest year recently was 1998, in which the powerful El Nino placed large amounts of water vapor in the air. Since then, temperatures have actually decreased.

Global Temperature (last 1,000 Years)

2) The study of the Earth’s climate is still relatively new and far from comprehensive. There are millions of variables involved, and scientists are only really beginning to understand the most basic factors such as solar radiation, ocean currents, and water vapor. Recent studies, particularly into solar factors, are suggesting that the Sun may be the most important factor in determining Earth’s climate.

3) Most of the graphs you see showing a hockey-stick-style, exponential increase in temperature over the last few decades are based on bad data. The problem is that they use surface temperature readings. Now let’s say that temperatures have been recorded in Los Angeles ever since 1850. In 1850, LA was little more than a ranch. Throughout the twentieth century, however, LA exploded into one of the largest cities in the world. For miles surrounding the thermometer, there is now nothing but asphalt, houses, gangstas, and more asphalt. Naturally, the temperature in downtown LA is going to be much higher than the temperature was in the middle of Farmer Fritz’s field due to all the pavement, cars, houses being heated, etc. Now this might be an extreme case, but it demonstrates how the surface temperature readings can be contaminated or produce higher average temperatures as urbanization occurs. Since the late 1970s, we have had data from weather balloons and satellites to compare with the surface temperature data. Unfortunately the graph I found does not have the mean temperature of all three, but you can still approximate it. The rise in global mean temperatures from the satellite and weather balloon data is significantly lower than the surface data. They show only slight rise in the average global temperature since the 1970s. This certainly does not correlate with the increasing CO2 output and the cumulative effect of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere on the other graph!

CO2 increase since 1960

Surface vs. Satellite and Weather Ballon Data

(N.B. how poorly the Satellite and Weather Ballon temperature readings correlate the CO2 increases in the graph above. Also, the spike in all three at the very end is due to the El Nino in 1998.)

4) Atmospheric carbon Dioxide does not correlate to temperature in the way is should if the alarmist models are to be believed. We see this above with the satellite data since the 1970s. It is also evident is the last 100 years. Much of the recorded global warming during that period took place between 1900 and 1940 (surface readings showed about 0.5°C), before much of the sharp increase in man’s CO2 output. As the CO2 output rose from 1940 to 1975, surface reading temperatures dropped 0.2°C. Nor does this appear to be just the case before the 20^th century. Some scientist have found from Antarctic ice core data that CO2 follows the same basic pattern as global temperature in the last 500,000 years. However, when they looked more closely, they found that CO2 lagged behind temperature, suggesting that CO2 levels were more of an effect rather than a cause of climate change.

5) Carbon Dioxide is not the main greenhouse gas; water vapor is. Water vapor accounts for 97% of greenhouse gases. Although atmospheric CO2 has increased from 280 ppm to 370 ppm over the last 100 years, it accounts for 0.035 % of the atmosphere. Some scientist believe that an increase of 500 % would not have a major or detrimental effect, compared to the 30 % increase we have already witnessed. If those estimates are correct, perhaps the question might be if we have enough fossil fuels to reach the threshold needed for large-scale climatic change!

6) The computer models you have seen are woefully inadequate. I assume you have all seen the alarming computer generated graphics of the Earth’s surface turning from blue to red. These are usually portrayed on TV in such a manner so as to arouse fear in the viewer thanks to clever use of music and disquieting commentary. They are often displayed to cause an emotional reaction. Unfortunately, these models would be more properly viewed as preliminary sketches for ‘The Incredibles’ than they represent accurate predictions. It is like trying to predict who wins the World Series based on a close examination of the Dodgers. In fact, as a whole they fare no better in past climate predictions than a random set of numbers. Richard Feynmann called our fascination with computer models a disease.

7) Man has little to do with glaciers disappearing. I know, you have seen pictures from 1900 showing glaciers and pictures from this year showing little or no glaciers attached to an article saying that evil Americans are driving away the glaciers and that Polynesians will soon be drowning. Again, these pictures and the stories that accompany them and meant to elicit an emotional reaction. Yes, the glaciers are shrinking. No, this is not time to panic. Glaciers once covered much of North America and carved out most of the features of Scotland. They disappeared without an SUV in sight. In fact, it is now believed that they have shrunk and grown 10 times since the last ice age 10,000 years ago. While activist repent of man’s fossil folly that destroys the glaciers, alpine researchers are uncovering stumps from forests covered not too long ago by the glaciers. Swiss scientists believe that the tongues of alpine glaciers were 300m higher when Hannibal led his hapless elephants into Italy than they are today (see here).

Sheets of ice in Antarctica are breaking off into the ocean, but it is also experiencing more precipitation. While some parts of the Antarctic are increasing in temperature, others are decreasing (Die Eisdecke der Antarktis wächts).

8) Global warming due to mankind is not causing extreme weather. A good example of this was last year’s hurricane season in Florida. When three hit in a month, commentators were suggesting global climate change was to blame. We are all going to die! Well, while we are all going to die, last year’s hurricane season was more the result of a strong Bermuda High than any other factor. We now link any natural disaster with climate change, but many worse ones have occurred in the past. The problem is that like with much of the ‘evidence’ linked with global warming in the popular media and imagination, we see what we want to see. Natural disasters have always and will always occur. Rather than undoing the Industrial and Agricultural revolutions in some Luddite fantasy, the best way for humankind to protect against problems such as droughts and earthquakes is to further those revolutions and the technology and free markets to which they gave rise.

9) Kyoto was just plain silly. The Bush administration did not kill this treaty, it found it stillborn and decided to bury it. The Clinton administration did not submit it to the Senate for ratification because it would have been soundly defeated on a bi-partisan basis. By punting it to the next administration, Clinton gave Gore the campaign issue, Bush the political fallout should he win, and the Republican-lead Senate the fallout should Gore win. Truly a good position for the Democrat party! The treaty itself is a crazy scheme which would not so much limit emissions as redistribute wealth from the western powers to the declining ex-Soviet bloc, while letting exploding countries like China off the hook. Even if Kyoto were fully enacted, it would not be enough if the climate change crowd are correct. Not only that, but many of the European countries are already falling short of their commitments and I think may ultimately scrap the treaty.

10) CO2 is good. It is essential to life on earth. Just as athletes compete better at sea level where their lungs can take in more oxygen, so plants grow better with increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Recent studies show just that occurring.

I could go on, but should stop there for now. The root problem with climate change, as for environmentalism as a whole, is that it is religious in nature. As MIT Meteorologist Richard Lindsen put it: "Do you believe in global warming? That is a religious question. So is the second part: Are you a skeptic or a believer?"

Environmentalism has actually become a caricature of Christianity. It has a Mother Earth, the original sin of industrialization, a humanity which delights in it freedom to sin with a elect few who have heard the gospel of recycling and renewable energy. Most importantly, however, it has its own Eschatology. When the Black Death swept western Europe, one reaction was that of the Flagellants (please, that’s Flagellants) who scourged themselves in public penance in the hopes that propitiating an angry god would assuage the epidemic. Most may now laugh at such behavior or attitudes, but the basic sentiment is still alive today. In order to repent of the sins of industrialization, they call for the economic scourging of the industrialized world. And just like Christian believers, they never live up to their beliefs. They still drive cars, import IPods, suck Lattes and take hot showers. Unfortunately the only thing differentiating environmentalism from Christianity is the lack of a redeemer. This leads me to question whether modern environmentalism’s view of original sin is merely a by-product of the Christian culture of the West in which it developed, as if merely by chance, or does its it come from a more primordial source- a root understanding of the sinfulness of man and his discord with the rest of creation.

At any rate, climatic apocalypticism provides an interesting study in science and society. Scientific studies are filtered through bureaucracies and a press that slants and distorts information to fit their own preconceptions on global warming. Advocates distort information and researchers rarely criticize the more extreme spin as alarm over a potential crisis brings more research money. Alarmists misrepresent scientific opinion in an attempt to manufacture consensus on global climate change as publications with unsympathetic editors refuse dissenting articles on the basis it might prevent political action (see here). Some global warming skeptics have even lost their jobs (see Wildlife groups axe Bellamy as global warming ‘heretic’). One wonders if the global warming alarmists’ ever increasing dogmatism is a response to the growing evidence against their position.

Ultimately I encourage you to research the scientific data for yourselves and to draw your own conclusions. Just be aware that what you have been fed by the press is not necessarily the case, and that they often play upon your emotions. There are numerous scientist at distinguished institutions who dissent from the popular view of global warming, and a large amount of uncertainty in any comprehensive study of world climate. Use energy wisely and ignore the environmental extremists and their doomsday scenarios. In the end, necessity is the mother of all invention: once global demand for fossil fuels outstrips supply, rising energy prices will provide the financial conditions necessary for man to develop the next realistic large-scale source of energy. Until then, the world won’t come to a climatic end.

Some of the dissenters:

http://www.co2science.org

http://ff.org/centers/csspp/misc/index.html

http://www.friendsofscience.org