Myths and Meteorology
by Gary Benoit
Like the Clinton administration before it, the Bush administration supports international efforts to curb global warming. Yet the evidence indicates that the earth is not overheating.
Media reports to the contrary, President George W. Bush is concerned about the issue of global warming. Not as concerned as Bill Clinton or Al Gore. But concerned enough to deliver a speech on the subject.
"The issue of climate change respects no border," Bush warned on June 11th. "Its effects cannot be reined in by an army nor advanced by any ideology. Climate change, with its potential to impact every corner of the world, is an issue that must be addressed by the world."
"The Kyoto Protocol was fatally flawed in fundamental ways," Bush said. "But the process used to bring nations together to discuss our joint response to climate change is an important one. That is why I am today committing the United States of America to work within the United Nations framework and elsewhere to develop with our friends and allies and nations throughout the world an effective and science-based response to the issue of global warming."
The United Nations Kyoto (global warming) treaty, which Bush has rejected, at least for now, would require the industrialized nations to radically reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other "greenhouse" gases. This would mean a corresponding reduction in the use of fossil fuels. The United States, in order to implement Kyoto, would have to cut fossil fuel emissions by an estimated 30 percent. Such a cutback would be calamitous. "[I]f you like the California power crisis, you’ll love Kyoto," Dr. S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, noted in an op-ed in the February 2nd Washington Times.
Although Bush has backed away from Kyoto, he has not backed away from the issue of global warming or the supposed need to do something about it. "… America’s unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility," he said in his June 11th speech. "To the contrary, my administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change." Like his predecessor, Bush is committed to reducing "greenhouse" gases — which is exactly what Kyoto was supposed to have accomplished. As Bush acknowledged: "Our approach must be consistent with the long-term goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere."
The guardians of public opinion have greased the skids for Bush’s adoption of that approach by portraying anything less than Kyoto as falling outside the mainstream. Yet there is no catastrophic global warming, and there is no need to reduce CO2 emissions.
Media Spin
There is, however, plenty of hot air. For instance, when the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a global warming report on June 6th, which was prepared at the request of the White House, the New York Times put the following spin on the story:
A panel of top American scientists declared today that global warming was a real problem and was getting worse, a conclusion that may help the Bush administration alter its stand on the issue....
In a much-anticipated report from the National Academy of Sciences, 11 leading atmospheric scientists, including previous skeptics about global warming, reaffirmed the mainstream view that the earth’s atmosphere was getting warmer and that human activity was largely responsible.
The Times pointed out that the authors of the report included "Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who for years has expressed skepticism about some of the more dire predictions of other climate scientists about the significance of human-caused warming." But Dr. Lindzen has not reversed himself on the global warming issue, and he takes issue with the media’s depiction of the report he coauthored.
In an op-ed appearing in the June 11th Wall Street Journal, Dr. Lindzen noted how the NAS report "was depicted in the press as an implicit endorsement of the Kyoto Protocol. CNN’s Michelle Mitchell was typical of the coverage when she declared that the report represented ‘a unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse, and is due to man. There is no wiggle room.’"
Dr. Lindzen continued: "As one of 11 scientists who prepared the report, I can state that this is simply untrue. For starters, the NAS never asks that all participants agree to all elements of a report, but rather that the report represent the span of views. This the full report did, making clear that there is no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends and what causes them." In fact, Lindzen pointed out, "the full text noted that 20 years was too short a period for estimating long-term trends, but the summary [which the media focused on] forgot to mention this."
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is also cited by the media as representing a supposedly pro-Kyoto scientific consensus on the global warming issue. However, the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers, which is typically what the media uses as the basis for their reports, "represents a consensus of government representatives (many of whom are also their nations’ Kyoto representatives), rather than of scientists," noted Dr. Lindzen.
But even full IPCC reports, which were written by scientists, were not immune from politics. In his testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on May 2nd, Dr. Lindzen shed some light on the IPCC process: "The preparation of the report, itself, was subject to pressure. There were usually several people working on every few pages. Naturally there were disagreements, but these were usually hammered out in a civilized manner. However, throughout the drafting sessions, IPCC ‘coordinators’ would go around insisting that criticism of [computer-driven climate] models be toned down, and that ‘motherhood’ statements be inserted to the effect that models might still be correct despite the cited faults. Refusals were occasionally met with ad hominem attacks." Dr. Lindzen knows what he is talking about from direct experience, since he has been a participant in IPCC proceedings. "I personally witnessed coauthors forced to assert their ‘green’ credentials in defense of their statements," he said.
According to Dr. Lindzen, the IPCC’s approach to the global warming issue is hardly surprising. "The IPCC was created to support the negotiations concerning CO2 emission reductions" he said in his Senate testimony. "Although the press frequently refers to the hundreds and even thousands of participants as the world’s leading climate scientists, such a claim is misleading on several grounds. First, climate science, itself, has traditionally been a scientific backwater. There is little question that the best science students traditionally went into physics, math and, more recently, computer science. Thus, speaking of ‘thousands’ of the world’s leading climate scientists is not especially meaningful. Even within climate science, most of the top researchers (at least in the US) avoid the IPCC because it is extremely time consuming and non-productive. Somewhat ashamedly I must admit to being the only active participant in my department. None of this matters a great deal to the IPCC. As a UN activity, it is far more important to have participants from a hundred countries many of which have almost no efforts in climate research."
Scientific "Skeptics"
Dr. Lindzen is often portrayed by the media as a global warming "skeptic," as if to suggest that his views fall outside the mainstream of scientific thought. In point of fact, thousands of scientists with impressive academic credentials do not buy the theory of catastrophic global warming. Many have made their views known publicly, only to be ignored by the major media. Dr. Lindzen, in fact, is just one of about 17,000 scientists who have signed an anti-Kyoto petition organized by Dr. Arthur Robinson, director of the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine. Two-thirds of the scientists who signed this petition hold advanced degrees.
Dr. Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote a cover letter asking scientists to sign the petition. "It is especially important for America to hear from its citizens who have the training necessary to evaluate the relevant data and offer sound advice," he explained. The petition itself states:
We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
The widespread scientific support behind this statement dwarfs that of the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers. But that does not stop the media from claiming a nonexistent scientific consensus behind the theory of catastrophic global warming.
Facts, Not Fiction
Scientific conclusions should be based on observable facts, not political agendas. Yet politics is driving the global warming debate. "Science, in the public arena, is commonly used as a source of authority with which to bludgeon political opponents and propagandize uninformed citizens," Dr. Lindzen lamented in his Wall Street Journal article. "This is what has been done with both the reports of the IPCC and the NAS. It is a reprehensible practice that corrodes our ability to make rational decisions."
Yet rational decisions can be made. All that is necessary is to separate the politics from the science and examine the known facts:
• Climate variability: The climate is constantly changing, not just season to season but year to year, century to century, and millennium to millennium. In his Journal article, Dr. Lindzen pointed out that "two centuries ago, much of the Northern Hemisphere was emerging from a little ice age. A millennium ago, during the Middle Ages, the same region was in a warm period. Thirty years ago, we were concerned with global cooling." During the global cooling scare of the 1970s, some observers even worried that the planet was on the verge of a new ice age.
• The actual temperature record: The global mean temperature is approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than it was a century ago. Based on surface readings, the temperature rose prior to 1940, perhaps in response to the end of the little ice age, which lasted until the 19th century. From about 1940 until about 1975, the temperature dropped, sparking the above-mentioned global cooling scare. More recently the temperature has been rising again, sparking concerns about global warming.
The accuracy of the surface temperature record must be kept in mind when evaluating trends measured in fractions of a degree. One significant problem is the extent to which the data may be skewed as a result of urbanization. Atmospheric physicist Dr. S. Fred Singer wrote in a letter that appeared in the May issue of Science: "The post-1940 global warming claimed by the IPCC comes mainly from distant surface stations and from tropical sea surface readings, with both data sets poorly controlled (in both quality and location)." On the other hand, "surface data from well-controlled U.S. stations (after removing the urban ‘heat-island’ effects) show the warmest years as being around 1940." In his testimony to the Senate Commerce Committee on July 18th of last year, Singer bluntly stated: "The post-1980 global warming trend from surface thermometers is not credible."
Dr. Singer, who established the U.S. Weather Satellite Service and served as its first director, is just one of many scientists who believe that temperature data collected by weather satellites provides a far better measuring stick than the surface readings. After all, the satellite data is truly global, and it is not skewed by the urban heat effect. The satellite data from January 1979 (when this data first became available) through May 2001 shows a warming trend of 0.038 degrees Celsius per decade — or less than four-tenths of one degree per century. This minuscule rate of increase, which could change, is far less than the dramatic increases in temperature the forecasters of doom have been warning against.
• Man's effect on the climate: In the interest of scrupulous accuracy, Dr. Lindzen acknowledged in his May 2nd Senate testimony that "man, like the butterfly, has some impact on climate." Obviously this was true when the Vikings were able to cultivate Greenland, Iceland, and Newfoundland. But it is true even today. In the April 3rd issue of the Wall Street Journal, George Melloan noted that, according to "serious scientists," "the greenhouse gases are a fundamental part of the biosphere, necessary to all life, and … industrial activity generates less than 5% of them, if that."
• Carbon dioxide's effect on climate: According to the global warming theory, the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which has been established, is causing the global temperature to rise. Most of the increase in the surface temperature during the past century occurred before most of the increase in atmospheric CO2. The temperature in 1940, recall, was not much different than it is now. Yet, as astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas pointed out in a letter published in the August 5, 1999 Wall Street Journal, "more than 80% of the manmade carbon dioxide has entered the air since the ’40s."
One reason why the global warming theory may be flawed is that the amount of atmospheric CO2 is not the only variable determining the earth’s temperature. It is not even the main "greenhouse" gas. In a chapter appearing in the compendium Earth Report 2000, Dr. Roy Spencer, senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, noted: "It is estimated that water vapor accounts for about 95 percent of the earth’s natural greenhouse effect, whereas carbon dioxide contributes most of the remaining 5 percent. Global warming projections assume that water vapor will increase along with any warming resulting from the increases in carbon dioxide concentrations."
The projected "positive feedback" to the initial CO2-induced warming may not occur to the extent that global warming theorists are predicting, however. As Dr. Spencer points out, "there remain substantial uncertainties in our understanding of how the climate system will respond to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases." Moreover, the natural greenhouse effect that heats the earth is moderated by natural cooling processes. "In other words," concluded Dr. Spencer, "the natural greenhouse effect cannot be considered in isolation as a process warming the earth, without at the same time accounting for cooling processes that actually keep the greenhouse effect from scorching us all."
• The sun's effect on climate: One factor global warming theorists ignore is the effect that the sun’s changing activity may have on the global temperature. A brighter sun may cause the global temperature to rise, and vice versa. Dr. Baliunas, in the Wall Street Journal letter referenced above, explained how the sun’s activity can be measured by the length of the sunspot cycle (the shorter the cycle, the more active the sun). Dr. Baliunas’ letter included a chart showing a close correlation between changes in the length of the sunspot cycle and Northern Hemisphere land temperature for 1750-1978.
Climate Models
The known facts do not point to catastrophic global warming. That prediction is not based on the known temperature record but on complicated computer models that have been grossly inaccurate in the past. Those models do a very poor job of properly applying all the myriad factors that shape the world’s climate, in large part because much of the mechanisms of climate remain largely unknown.
Dr. Frederick Seitz warned against relying on computer models of the climate in the Wall Street Journal for April 19th: "According to climate change models, the earth’s surface temperature should have increased substantially in the past few decades because of man-made carbon dioxide already added to the atmosphere. However, actual temperature measurements show that these computer models have exaggerated the amount of warming by at least a factor of two." In light of this failure, Dr. Seitz reasoned: "Since the computer estimates of global warming for the past few decades have been cut back by a factor of two or more, to bring them in line with the measured temperature increases, the same correction should be applied to temperature predictions for the coming century. This would reduce the projected warming in 2100 to well within the range of natural variability of climate — the normal fluctuations that occur in nature without any human influence."
Dangerous Solution
To head off the theoretical global warming threat, America and other developed nations are supposed to subject themselves to a global warming treaty that would result in an energy crisis so severe as to make California’s energy shortfall appear mild by comparison. Full implementation of Kyoto would not save the earth from catastrophic global warming since no such threat exists. It would, however, reduce our standard of living and consolidate more power into the hands of those who intend to control and allocate the earth’s supposedly limited resources.
It is not too surprising that the Clinton-Gore White House supported Kyoto, considering that administration’s overt radicalism. Nor is it surprising that Clinton never submitted the Kyoto treaty to the Senate for ratification. He knew that the treaty would be dead on arrival, since that body had earlier voted 95-0 not to ratify any global warming treaty that did not include commitments on the part of developing nations such as India and China. What is surprising is that George W. Bush is now being cast as an anti-environment, anti-Mother Earth ignoramus for having criticized Kyoto in its present form when he should have stated that no global warming threat exists.
Extreme Weather
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| Left: A destructive "downburst" hits the ground near Wichita Falls, Texas on May 24, 1994. Top Right: A massive, powerful "wall cloud" hovers just above ground near Spearman, Texas in 1982. Bottom Right: Infrared imagery from a GEOS 7 satellite shows Hurricane Andrew bearing down on the Florida coast. |
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Violent storms like these are widely predicted to increase in frequency and severity as a result of global warming. In the August 2000 issue of Scientific American, Paul R. Epstein wrote: "Weather becomes more extreme and variable with atmospheric heating in part because the warming accelerates the water cycle.... While the oceans are being heated, so is the land, which can become highly parched in dry areas. Parching enlarges the pressure gradients that cause winds to develop, leading to turbulent winds, tornadoes and other powerful storms."
Predictions of extreme warming are based largely on flawed computer models of the climate. But such models seem to indicate that global warming would decrease storm severity. In his May 2nd Senate testimony, MIT climate scientist Richard Lindzen pointed out that "the most important energy source for extratropical storms is the temperature difference between the tropics and the poles which is predicted by computer models to decrease with global warming. This also implies reduced temperature variation associated with weather since such variations result from air moving from one latitude to another. Consistent with this, even the IPCC Policymakers Summary notes that no significant trends have been identified in tropical or extratropical storm intensity and frequence. Nor have trends been found in tornados, hail events or thunder days."
