Is It All Just Hot Air? (Global Warming)

Albuquerque Journal ^ | 7/23/06 | John Fleck

[woofie]

SANTA FE— Greenland has become global warming's poster child: rising temperatures melt glaciers, threatening a devastating rise in sea levels that could inundate coastal cities around the world.

Greenhouse gases from factories and cars are to blame, according to the conventional story, which features prominently in Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."

And yet there was Los Alamos National Laboratory climate scientist Petr Chylek last week, standing before a gathering of his colleagues to explain that Greenland isn't actually warming.

What gives?

Chylek is a dissenter from the scientific mainstream. While most scientists think greenhouse gases are responsible for changes already seen in Earth's climate, Chylek believes the "data are inconclusive."

"You really cannot say for certain what is causing current climate change," Chylek said in an interview.

The Greenland story gained traction in February, when a team of U.S. scientists drew headlines around the world with new data suggesting Greenland's glaciers are melting and slipping into the ocean far more rapidly than previously thought.

Chylek shot back last month with evidence from Greenland temperature records showing the North Atlantic island was cooler in the second half of the 20th century than it was in the first.

The exchange is the sort of thing that happens all the time in science: researchers doing their best to make sense of imperfect and sometimes conflicting data.

But this is not just any science. In climate science, the debate over whether we need to change global energy production to reduce greenhouse gas emissions turns ordinary scientific disagreements into political minefields.

[Cementjungle]

There's a reason it's called "Green"land.

It was once green. DUH.

Wrong. It was done for marketing purposes.

[gondramB]

>The chart definitely busts the “man made” aspect of the theory of global warming.<

No one chart is gonna make or bust the man-made aspect of global warming - its complex.

For example there was a flat spot in temperatures between 1945-1976 that human casuists don't like to talk about.

But there are CO2 core ice measures that correlate over the long run (10,000 years +) than any other single factor.

Its complicated and my horse is the race is try to suggest conservatives
1. Acknowledge that global temperature has gone up a degree this century and that lately the increase has accelerated
2. But focus on "why" rather than "if."

The likely "why" is gonna be a complex blend of factors and too little study is going into determining how much of this is within our control - its too much "us vs. them."

[dfwgator]

The Earth is not fragile.

[gondramB]

>>There's a reason it's called "Green"land.

It was once green. DUH.

Now it's becoming green agai<<


Yeah...well... you might want to google first nbext time.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Here's some good links. These are articles that are written by a Ph. D meteorologist, Dr. Joe D'Aleo a.k.a. "Dr. Dewpoint": http://www.intellicast.com/Local/GetDrDewCategory.asp?Category=Global%20Warming

This is a really good one with charts and graphs: http://www.intellicast.com/DrDewpoint/Library/1305/

[gondramB]

>>The Earth is not fragile.<<

I'm not usre hwy that was directed at me. Unless God intervenes we know the earth's future. The sun will expand until its radius exceeds the distance to the earth and the earth will be consumed. Nothing short of the hand of God will end it sooner or later. So the earth is fragile in a sense.

[Steve Van Doorn]

I hope you don't mind. I borrowed some of your charts while talking about this before. Your charts are just so clear and makes global warming nuts look funny.

Peak heat waves where during the time of “Rome, Cathedrals and not even as hot as those times is the present “global warming.” Some how I would like to use your charts in a comedy skit.

[dfwgator]

My point is that man himself is not capable of destroying the Earth. Humans may be destroyed, but not the planet.

And humans will adapt to whatever changes do happen over the course of time. The only constant on this planet is change.

[ChessExpert]

he speaks for himself on these questions, not for Los Alamos.

"We have many people in the lab who completely disagree with me," he said.

Smart. If he pushes the envelop too hard, he might be out of a job.

I think there is a fair amount of junk science these days. There are reasons for junk science. These include ideology, money, and job security. How do you recognize valid science? Shortcuts, such as credentials, may not be valid. Maybe the only way is to plough through the arguments.

[gondramB]

>>My point is that man himself is not capable of destroying the Earth. Humans may be destroyed, but not the planet.

And humans will adapt to whatever changes do happen over the course of time. The only constant on this planet is change.<<

Agreed, e are not capable opf destroying the earth (although, if we really tried, it has been suggested we might be able to render it uninhabitable).

How well we will adapt remains to be seen.

[ancient_geezer]

But there are CO2 core ice measures that correlate over the long run (10,000 years +) than any other single factor.

There is a minor problem with that correlation, in that rising temperatures from other factors, releases CO2 into the atmosphere by melting ice, heating the oceans, the increase in biological activity and similar such factors.

 

Here Comes the Sun

"Carbon dioxide, the main culprit in the alleged greenhouse-gas warming, is not a "driver" of climate change at all. Indeed, in earlier research Jan Veizer, of the University of Ottawa and one of the co-authors of the GSA Today article, established that rather than forcing climate change, CO2 levels actually lag behind climatic temperatures, suggesting that global warming may cause carbon dioxide rather than the other way around."

***

"Veizer and Shaviv's greatest contribution is their time scale. They have examined the relationship of cosmic rays, solar activity and CO2, and climate change going back through thousands of major and minor coolings and warmings. They found a strong -- very strong -- correlation between cosmic rays, solar activity and climate change, but almost none between carbon dioxide and global temperature increases."

 

CO2-Temperature Correlations

• "(1) correlation does not prove causation, (2) cause must precede effect, and (3) when attempting to evaluate claims of causal relationships between different parameters, it is important to have as much data as possible in order to weed out spurious correlations.
  
  ***
  
  Consider, for example, the study of Fischer et al. (1999), who examined trends of atmospheric CO2 and air temperature derived from Antarctic ice core data that extended back in time a quarter of a million years.  Over this extended period, the three most dramatic warming events experienced on earth were those associated with the terminations of the last three ice ages; and for each of these climatic transitions, earth's air temperature rose well in advance of any increase in atmospheric CO2.  In fact, the air's CO2 content did not begin to rise until 400 to 1,000 years after the planet began to warm.  Such findings have been corroborated by Mudelsee (2001), who examined the leads/lags of atmospheric CO2 concentration and air temperature over an even longer time period, finding that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged behind variations in air temperature by 1,300 to 5,000 years over the past 420,000 years."

[ see also: Indermuhle et al. (2000), Monnin et al. (2001), Yokoyama et al. (2000), Clark and Mix (2000) ]

• "Other studies periodically demonstrate a complete uncoupling of CO2 and temperature "

[see: Petit et al. (1999), Staufer et al. (1998), Cheddadi et al., (1998), Raymo et al., 1998, Pagani et al. (1999), Pearson and Palmer (1999), Pearson and Palmer, (2000) ]

• "Considered in their entirety, these several results present a truly chaotic picture with respect to any possible effect that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have on global temperature.  Clearly, atmospheric CO2 is not the all-important driver of global climate change the climate alarmists make it out to be."

 

Global warming and global dioxide emission and concentration:
a Granger causality analysis

http://isi-eh.usc.es/trabajos/122_41_fullpaper.pdf

•  "We find, in opposition to previous studies, that there is no evidence of Granger causality from global carbon dioxide emission to global surface temperature. Further, we could not find robust empirical evidence for the causal nexus from global carbon dioxide concentration to global surface temperature."

[Steve Van Doorn]

"interesting, but not a cause for action."

I don't know about that. Might be a good time to buy land.

[ancient_geezer]

Might be a good time to buy land

I have some great future oceanfront property in Colorado I could sell you, for the right price ;O)

[marron]

You might be right. Maybe some oceanfront propert in Baffinland might be a good investment right now. Sit back for a couple of years and wait for the vacationers to start showing up.

[gondramB]

That's a good debate to have and that's why I said CO2 levels correlate rather than saying they cause.


Either way tit points to global warming as a real problem but it may not be be that human causation is the major factor.

[Conservative4Life]

More proof of global warming

[Steve Van Doorn]

"may"

I find it insulting to use the word 'may'

[ChessExpert]

It may not be conclusive, but it is evidence.

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

Even the Weather Channel which has turned green and foolish is shooting itself in the foot.This past week with the heat i was noticing the record highs and lows and it has been OVER A HUNDRED YEARS since we had a week of triple digit temperatures.These date back to 1901 for our area and still we did not have a single day with a triple digit.

[marron]

It was once green. DUH. Wrong. It was done for marketing purposes.

Partly. But the fact remains that the settlers lived by agriculture. Later, colder climate made that impossible, and the settlers either died out or departed.

Just as a side note, they are excavating a medieval farm that was covered by advancing ice, or rather, by sand pushed forward by advancing ice. As it got colder, crops began failing, and they began to abandon their farms. This period marks what is sometimes called the "little ice age".

We are coming out of the "little ice age".