Scientists OK Gore's movie for accuracy [barf alert]

WASHINGTON - The nation's top climate scientists are giving "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy.

The former vice president's movie — replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets — mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press.

The AP contacted more than 100 top climate researchers by e-mail and phone for their opinion. Among those contacted were vocal skeptics of climate change theory. Most scientists had not seen the movie, which is in limited release, or read the book.

But those who have seen it had the same general impression: Gore conveyed the science correctly; the world is getting hotter and it is a manmade catastrophe-in-the-making caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

"Excellent," said William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. "He got all the important material and got it right."

Robert Corell, chairman of the worldwide Arctic Climate Impact Assessment group of scientists, read the book and saw Gore give the slideshow presentation that is woven throughout the documentary.

"I sat there and I'm amazed at how thorough and accurate," Corell said. "After the presentation I said, `Al, I'm absolutely blown away. There's a lot of details you could get wrong.' ... I could find no error."

Gore, in an interview with the AP, said he wasn't surprised "because I took a lot of care to try to make sure the science was right."

The tiny errors scientists found weren't a big deal, "far, far fewer and less significant than the shortcoming in speeches by the typical politician explaining an issue," said Michael MacCracken, who used to be in charge of the nation's global warming effects program and is now chief scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington.

One concern was about the connection between hurricanes and global warming. That is a subject of a heated debate in the science community. Gore cited five recent scientific studies to support his view.

"I thought the use of imagery from Hurricane Katrina was inappropriate and unnecessary in this regard, as there are plenty of disturbing impacts associated with global warming for which there is much greater scientific consensus," said Brian Soden, a University of Miami professor of meteorology and oceanography.

Some scientists said Gore confused his ice sheets when he said the effect of the Clean Air Act is noticeable in the Antarctic ice core; it is the Greenland ice core. Others thought Gore oversimplified the causal-link between the key greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and rising temperatures.

While some nonscientists could be depressed by the dire disaster-laden warmer world scenario that Gore laid out, one top researcher thought it was too optimistic. Tom Wigley, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, thought the former vice president sugarcoated the problem by saying that with already-available technologies and changes in habit — such as changing light bulbs — the world could help slow or stop global warming.

While more than 1 million people have seen the movie since it opened in May, that does not include Washington's top science decision makers. President Bush said he won't see it. The heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and NASA haven't seen it, and the president's science adviser said the movie is on his to-see list.

"They are quite literally afraid to know the truth," Gore said. "Because if you accept the truth of what the scientific community is saying, it gives you a moral imperative to start to rein in the 70 million tons of global warming pollution that human civilization is putting into the atmosphere every day."

As far as the movie's entertainment value, Scripps Institution geosciences professor Jeff Severinghaus summed it up: "My wife fell asleep. Of course, I was on the edge of my chair."

To simplify:

"Accelerated Global Warming and Atmospheric CO2 Emissions

An assessment of the likely increase of CO2 in the atmosphere due to climate change and if the Amazon Rainforest ceases to be a CO2 sink.
The C02 content of the atmosphere is usually expressed in parts per million (ppm) by weight and the use of fossil fuels is expressed as so many tons of carbon burned per year. At present the burning of fossil fuels releases 7 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year in the form of carbon dioxide gas, C02.

C02 weighs 44 / 12 times the weight of carbon. This is derived from the atomic weights
of carbon, 12, and oxygen, 16. The molecular weight (MW) of C02 is 12 + (2 x 16) = 44 and the MW of carbon is 12. So C02 is 44/12 = 3.67 times heavier than carbon per molecule.

Therefore burning one billion tons of carbon produces 3.67 billion tons of C02.

(A) and so burning 7 billion tons of carbon will produce 26.7 billion tons of C02

The weight of the Earth's atmosphere can be calculated as follows. Atmospheric pressure at sea level is on average 14.5 pounds per square inch = 10 tons per square metre. This pressure is due to the weight of atmosphere above an area at sea level of one square metre.

The radius of the Earth "r" is 5,925 km and so the surface area of the Earth (land and ocean) is 4 x "pie" x "r" squared = 4 x 3.142 x 5925 x 5925 = 441 million square kilometres = 441,000 billion square metres.

Therefore the weight of the Earth's atmosphere is 441,000 billion x 10 = 4.41 million billion tons.

Now 26.7 billion (the weight in tons of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere each year, see (A) above), divided by 4.41 million billion gives the fraction 6 /one million which means that the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere each year from burning fossil fuels is equal to 6 parts per million (ppm) of the atmosphere by weight. (6 millionths)

It can be seen therefore that burning 7 billion tons of carbon from fossil fuels is now dumping 6 ppm per year of C02 into the atmosphere.

(B) Pro-rata, burning one billion tons of carbon from fossil fuels dumps 6 / 7 = 0.85 ppm of CO2 into the atmosphere.

As explained in the above Article 1, the Amazon rainforest is probably absorbing 2 billion tons of carbon per year. Removing this amount of carbon reduces the C02 content of the atmosphere by 2 x 0.85 = 1.7 ppm. per year.

So the Amazon rain forest is absorbing 1.7 ppm of the 6 ppm of the total C02 being emitted by fossil fuel burning.

The current understanding is that at the present level of concentration of C02 in the atmosphere C02 is being absorbed by natural processes, of which the Amazon rainforest is a major component, at the rate of 3 ppm, i.e. one half of 6 ppm rate at which CO2 is being dumped into the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning. If C02 emissions are rising this will mean that year on year the C02 content of the atmosphere will rise by at least one half the previous year's rate of emission.

Therefore at present C02 is increasing by 3 ppm each year (i.e. 6 - 3 = 3 ppm). If the level of fossil fuel burning rises by say only 25% (a much bigger rise is predicted) and if natural processes do not increase their rate of absorption then the rate of increase will become 3 + 25% of 6 = 4.5 ppm per year and if by 2050 we loose the absorption by the Amazon rainforest the rate of increase becomes 4.5 + 1.7 = 6.2 ppm per year, twice the current level. At this rate C02 levels would increase by 50 x 6 = 300 ppm during the 50 years from 2050 to the end of the century.

The increase in C02 at today's rate over the 50 years from now to 2050 gives a further increase of 50 x 3 = 150 ppm.

So the C02 content of the atmosphere by 2050 and 2100 could be as follows:

Today's level in say year 2,000

Increase at today's rate up to 2050 = 50 years x 3 ppm

Increase from 2050 to 2100 assuming 25% growth
in fossil fuel use and the Amazon rainforest
ceasing to be a C02 sink = 50 years x 6 ppm

Therefore total C02 in the atmosphere at 2100
= 350 ppm

= 150 ppm

= 300 ppm

= 800 ppm

This total does not include C02 from Amazon rainforest fires, however no doubt other forests will expand elsewhere in the world as their conditions become more favourable so release of carbon by forest fires in the Amazon rainforest will be offset by new trees elsewhere but there will be a time lag. Also non-tropical forests only absorb CO2 during the spring and summer growing season whereas tropical forests grow all the year round and tropical forests grow at a faster rate and so absorb more CO2 than temperate forests.

If 10 years' growth of the Amazon rainforest were released in one year's fires this would add an additional 10 x 1.7 = 17 ppm C02 into the atmosphere in that year.

If the Amazon rainforest becomes savannah then 90% of the carbon currently locked up in bio-mass would be released. Can we estimate how much carbon this represents?

Assume trees at 20 metre spacing, therefore 5 x 5 = 25 trees per hectare. (100m x 100m)
Assume 10 tons of carbon per tree, therefore 25 x 10 = 250 tons of carbon per hectare.

1 square km = 100 hectares. Therefore weight of carbon = 25,000 tons / sq. km.

The total area of the Amazon rainforest = 4,000,000 sq. kms. approx.

Therefore weight of carbon in trees = 25,000 x 4,000,000 = 100 billion tons

If 90% of this carbon returns to the atmosphere as CO2 this would increase atmospheric CO2 by 0.9 x 100 x 0.85 (see (B) above) = 76 ppm.

The increases in atmospheric CO2 levels described above are significant increases when compared to historic levels (280 ppm in 1850 and 170ppm.in the recent geological past) and also the rate of change is accelerating. We are entering unknown territory. However we can project what might happen on the basis of what we do know and the possibilities are awesome. These possibilities will be described in future articles to be published soon."

http://www.hydrogen.co.uk/h2_now/journal/articles/2_global_warming.htm

not everyone agress with the gore propaganda

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/opinion/14910117.htm

Early in the movie, Gore shows us images of Mount Kilimanjaro's disappearing snow cap and blames the loss on global warming. But scientists say the disappearing snow is due to changes in land use at the bottom of the mountain, causing drier air to rise up the mountainside.

Later, we see ice melting in the Arctic, Greenland and the Antarctic. More evidence of global warming? Not necessarily. Scientists say temperatures in the Arctic were higher during the 1930s and the current melting is probably part of a natural cycle caused by ocean currents, not greenhouse gases. And only small parts of Greenland and the Antarctic are melting: Snow and ice are accumulating as rapidly in other parts, for a net loss of around zero.

Gore ignores these inconvenient facts because, he says, the only people who disagree with him are oil-company stooges. At one point, he compares scientists who disagree with him to apologists for the tobacco industry.

So what are we to make of Tim Ball at the University of Winnipeg, Robert Balling at Arizona State, Sallie Baliunas at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Bob Carter at James Cook University in Australia, Randall Cerveny at Arizona State, John Christy at the University of Alabama, Robert Davis at the University of Virginia, Christopher Essex at the University of Western Ontario, Oliver Frauenfeld at the University of Colorado, Wibjörn Karlèn at Stockholm University and Christopher Landsea at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration?

And David Legates at the University of Delaware, Henry Linden at IIT, Richard Lindzen at MIT, Ross McKitrick at the University of Guelph, Patrick Michaels at the University of Virginia, Dick Morgan at the University of Exeter, Tim Peterson at Carleton University, Roger Pielke Jr. at the University of Colorado, Eric Posmentier at Dartmouth, Willie Soon at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center, Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama and Boris Winterhalter at the University of Helsinki?

All are respected authorities on climatology, working at respected universities, who appear regularly in peer-reviewed science journals. Some, like Lindzen, are undisputed leading thinkers in their fields. Yet all dispute Gore's alarmist claims.

So whom are you going to believe, Al Gore or real scientists?

There are plenty of other errors and exaggerations in the movie, which people more expert than I are documenting and exposing. Suffice it to say, "An Inconvenient Truth" contains very little truth, and a big helping of propaganda.

What frightens me is the probability that Al Gore himself believes the hype he's trying to sell. Those who've watched him give his PowerPoint presentation and have discussed it with him say he does.

He's a DemocRAT - it's the same thing as a Shinner (except without a terrorist wing...)

Liberals surely are terrorists if one doesn't restrict the definition to just those who don a bomb belt and walk into a crowd.
Both though have the same mentality - 'the world is unjust and unfair and any means to remedy this justifies the end'.
Both lie to accomplish their goals, (See 'means justify end' above).
Both prey on the poor, undereducated masses, promising them glory but at the expense of their being beholden for life to their masters.
Both deplore capitalism and any economic system that enables people to break free from the yoke of subservience to their herders.

And do not doubt for one minute that if Albert Gore Jr. runs for POTUS and loses again that he just won't try hijacking a commercial plane and fly it into the President-elect's platform on inauguration day.
His evil plot will prove to be of no avail though, as I can see portly Albert getting stuck in the small entrance to the cockpit. While he tries to wiggle himself loose, alert stewardesses spray him with mace then a couple of Republicans sitting in first-class arise and beat the livin' hell outta him.

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