A Very Political Climate (Weather Channel climate expert responds to blog fervor)

The Weather Channel ^ | 01/19/2007 | Heidi Cullen

[cogitator]

I wrote a post recently that has generated some pretty strong reaction and I wanted to take a moment to stop the spin.

I am a scientist. And I'm a skeptic.

AND after more than a century of research -- based on healthy skepticism -- scientists have learned something very important about our planet. It's warming up -- glaciers are melting, sea level is rising and the weather is changing. The primary explanation for this warming is the carbon dioxide released from -- among other things -- the burning of fossil fuels.

With that knowledge comes responsibility.

Here at The Weather Channel, we have accepted that responsibility, and see it as our job to give YOU the facts on global warming.

Our position on global warming is supported by the scientific community ... including the American Meteorological Society. Their official statement says:

"There is convincing evidence that since the industrial revolution, human activities, resulting in increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and other trace constituents in the atmosphere, have become a major agent of climate change."

I've read all your comments saying I want to silence meteorologists who are skeptical of the science of global warming. That is not true. The point of my post was never to stifle discussion. It was to raise it to a level that doesn't confuse science and politics. Freedom of scientific expression is essential.

Many of you have accused me and The Weather Channel of taking a political position on global warming. That is not our intention.

Our goal at The Weather Channel has always been to keep people out of harm's way. Whether it's a landfalling hurricane or global warming.

Consistent with this goal, on this site and on The Climate Code we aim to help our viewers better understand why scientists are so concerned about climate change -- and then to decide for themselves what they want to do about it.

The bottom line is ... this issue isn't going away.

That said, I would like to extend invitations to any of my colleagues in climatology or meteorology to join this discussion by posting a blog on this site or even coming on The Climate Code.

However, know that we here are focused on moving this discussion forward.

[LC HOGHEAD]

One might be more inclined to give credence to global warming if it wasn’t for the Kyoto accords. Seems that the U.S. was the only country to be singled out for sanctions and regulations, heavier polluters like China and India got off scott free. Kyoto wasn’t about solving global warming at all, it was about “leveling the playing field” economically for participating nations, and punishing the bad ol’ U S of A, even though roughly 25% of our oil consumption goes to producing and shipping the food for those who bite the hand that keeps their asses alive for another day….global politics as usual.

As for this weather ditz calling for a Krystallnacht against people with a contrary opinion, does she do her forecasts with a fake hitler moustache? typical of the tolerant left

[Publius6961]

I am a scientist. And I'm a skeptic.

Dear Heidi:

I am Mother Theresa.
In the words of a truly famous man, you are entitled to your opinions, but not to your own facts.

Where are the facts backing up your self-serving (false) statement?

Here is a real scientist:

Lindzen, Richard S.
Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
Professor Lindzen is a dynamical meteorologist with interests in the broad topics of climate, planetary waves, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres, and hydrodynamic instability. His research involves studies of the role of the tropics in mid-latitude weather and global heat transport, the moisture budget and its role in global change, the origins of ice ages, seasonal effects in atmospheric transport, stratospheric waves, and the observational determination of climate sensitivity.
He has made major contributions to the development of the current theory for the Hadley Circulation, which dominates the atmospheric transport of heat and momentum from the tropics to higher latitudes, and has advanced the understanding of the role of small scale gravity waves in producing the reversal of global temperature gradients at the mesopause. He pioneered the study of how ozone photochemistry, radiative transfer and dynamics interact with each other. He is currently studying the ways in which unstable eddies determine the pole to equator temperature difference, and the nonlinear equilibration of baroclinic instability and the contribution of such instabilities to global heat transport.
He has also been developing a new approach to air-sea interaction in the tropics, and is actively involved in parameterizing the role of cumulus convection in heating and drying the atmosphere. He has developed models for the Earth's climate with specific concern for the stability of the ice caps, the sensitivity to increases in CO2, the origin of the 100,000 year cycle in glaciation, and the maintenance of regional variations in climate. In cooperation with colleagues and students, he is developing a sophisticated, but computationally simple, climate model to test whether the proper treatment of cumulus convection will significantly reduce climate sensitivity to the increase of greenhouse gases.

Prof. Lindzen is a recipient of the AMS's Meisinger, and Charney Awards, and AGU's Macelwane Medal. He is a corresponding member of the NAS Committee on Human Rights, a member of the NRC Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, and a Fellow of the AAAS1.
He is a consultant to the Global Modeling and Simulation Group at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and a Distinguished Visiting Scientist at California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (Ph.D., '64, S.M., '61, A.B., '60, Harvard University)

Dr. Lindzen wrote the dissenting opinion of the original summary of the initial anthropogenic climate report which distorted and, by ommision, misrepresented the very concept of "global warming"

Until you can produce similar bona fides, stop wasting out time!

[Publius6961]

That's just a real dumb statement from someone with a doctorate in meteorology, or climatology, or whatever.

Near Eastern Studies...

[Publius6961]

She was actually right about that. They aren't (properly) called hurricanes in the Southern Hemisphere. Hurricanes occur exclusively in the North Atlantic and eastern Pacific (north of the equator).

A distinction without a difference.
Give me a break!

Do the physics and science of natural phenomena change merely by using a different word to describe the same identical physical thing?

[OESY]

Will Al Gore Melt?, by FLEMMING ROSE and BJORN LOMBORG


...One can only speculate. But if we are to follow Mr. Gore's suggestions of radically changing our way of life, the costs are not trivial. If we slowly change our greenhouse gas emissions over the coming century, the U.N. actually estimates that we will live in a warmer but immensely richer world. However, the U.N. Climate Panel suggests that if we follow Al Gore's path down toward an environmentally obsessed society, it will have big consequences for the world, not least its poor. In the year 2100, Mr. Gore will have left the average person 30% poorer, and thus less able to handle many of the problems we will face, climate change or no climate change.

Clearly we need to ask hard questions. Is Mr. Gore's world a worthwhile sacrifice? But it seems that critical questions are out of the question. It would have been great to ask him why he only talks about a sea-level rise of 20 feet. In his movie he shows scary sequences of 20-feet flooding Florida, San Francisco, New York, Holland, Calcutta, Beijing and Shanghai. But were realistic levels not dramatic enough? The U.N. climate panel expects only a foot of sea-level rise over this century. Moreover, sea levels actually climbed that much over the past 150 years. Does Mr. Gore find it balanced to exaggerate the best scientific knowledge available by a factor of 20?

Mr. Gore says that global warming will increase malaria and highlights Nairobi as his key case. According to him, Nairobi was founded right where it was too cold for malaria to occur. However, with global warming advancing, he tells us that malaria is now appearing in the city. Yet this is quite contrary to the World Health Organization's finding. Today Nairobi is considered free of malaria, but in the 1920s and '30s, when temperatures were lower than today, malaria epidemics occurred regularly. Mr. Gore's is a convenient story, but isn't it against the facts?

He considers Antarctica the canary in the mine, but again doesn't tell the full story. He presents pictures from the 2% of Antarctica that is dramatically warming and ignores the 98% that has largely cooled over the past 35 years. The U.N. panel estimates that Antarctica will actually increase its snow mass this century. Similarly, Mr. Gore points to shrinking sea ice in the Northern Hemisphere, but don't mention that sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere is increasing. Shouldn't we hear those facts? Mr. Gore talks about how the higher temperatures of global warming kill people. He specifically mentions how the European heat wave of 2003 killed 35,000. But he entirely leaves out how global warming also means less cold and saves lives. Moreover, the avoided cold deaths far outweigh the number of heat deaths. For the U.K. it is estimated that 2,000 more will die from global warming. But at the same time 20,000 fewer will die of cold. Why does Mr. Gore tell only one side of the story?

Al Gore is on a mission. If he has his way, we could end up choosing a future, based on dubious claims, that could cost us, according to a U.N. estimate, $553 trillion over this century. Getting answers to hard questions is not an unreasonable expectation before we take his project seriously. It is crucial that we make the right decisions posed by the challenge of global warming. These are best achieved through open debate, and we invite him to take the time to answer our questions: We are ready to interview you any time, Mr. Gore -- and anywhere.

.

[cogitator]

I hope she also reads my comments in that thread.

[bcsco]

Near Eastern Studies...

Now, now, let's be specific. It must have been in Near Eastern Studies...of camel flatulence in order to have prompted her interest in global warming.

I'll bet she gets all dreamy when 'Moonlight At The Oasis' is played on the radio.

[cogitator]

A distinction without a difference.

Proper terminology is a very important aspect of science. What Dr. Cullen wrote was meteorologically correct. A good, well-educated meteorologist would not call a Southern Hemisphere tropical weather system a hurricane -- and that was her point about what a knowledgeable meteorologist should know.

Otherwise let's start talking about Typhoon Katrina.

[cogitator]

So how does one explain the very warm conditions of the Mesozoic?

Higher CO2 in the atmosphere, mainly. You have to study the way that tectonics and weathering affect atmospheric CO2 on long geologic time-scales to understand how CO2 has varied in prior epochs such as the Mesozoic. On shorter time-scales, other factors become more significant.

[pepsionice]

I think the key element which no one ever talks much about...concerning the earth, the other planets, the Sun, the environment, etc....is magetic variation. Basically...the earth is a bit of a huge steel ball...which rotates...on a slight swirel...ever so slight...just enought to trigger four seasons and cause a airflow that drifts all over the planet. If you took the Sun value of magnetisicm and then ran a model against it...then ran the same test with a 1 percent upswing or downswing...I'm betting its enought to cause heating or cooling. Course, I'm not a rocket scientist...but I doubt seriously that any significant research has been done on this idea.

[cogitator]

Its "fourth assessment report," due out in February, will conclude civilization's threat has been overstated, so it will lower its warming projection to 2.7 F to 7.5 F, and adjust its guess on sea-level rise to 17 inches.

Where'd you read this? A couple of weeks ago it was determined that a reporter had screwed up the difference between estimated temperature rise by 2100 and climate sensitivity to doubled CO2. It turned out that the IPCC isn't going to change its estimate range of warming by 2100 significantly. The latter point on sea level is accurate, but the main concern is ice sheet destabilization, particularly Greenland, not expected to happen this century. Next century -- all bets are off. If global temperatures rise by 3 C, very possible with CO2 reaching 550 ppm, then Greenland ice sheet full-scale melting becomes a likely scenario.

[cogitator]

All factors have to be considered. ... I doubt that all factors are being considered.

In order to do the science effectively, the most significant factors should be the ones that get the most attention. Factors that have a very minor effect are ... minor factors.

[cogitator]

The same sorts of high-CO2 + warmer temps events happened before the rise of human civilizations, if you ask anyone who studies the prehistorical climate. What were those spikes caused by, cavemen in SUVs?

Milankovitch cycle-forced climate variability, actually.

What caused the most recent warming trend that produced bumper crops in Europe? What caused the Little Ice Age that followed? Was it cow flatulence? Knights on dirt bikes?

The Little Ice Age has been explained primarily due to a period of lower solar activity, called the Maunder Minimum of decreased sunspot numbers. At the end of the LIA, a couple of large volcanic eruptions also had a brief effect.

[cogitator]

You believe that not only have we changed the climate in the other 97% but also in the arctic,antarctic,Africa and the oceans.My what busy bees we have been to achieve all this with ac units, hair spray cans and car exhausts in one climatic period of 30 yrs!

It really started in the 1700s with expanded agriculture, and accelerated in the mid-1800s with industrialization, and has further accelerated in the last 30 years as population has increased.

[cogitator]

Actually most glaciers are growing. About 45% of the measured glaciers are shrinking.

Reference?

[cogitator]

but it also happens to prove that global warming is a natural cycle, because all of the CO2 + high temp periods are before the Industrial Revolution...indeed, most of them are before we had civilizations. ... *It doesn't prove it, it only proves that at times of high temp we also have high CO2. The high temps could be causing the high CO2 by causing it to outgas from the increasingly warmer oceans.

A little research will demonstrate that previous glacial-interglacial cycles were initiated by maxima and minima of Milankovitch-cycle solar insolation variability. Once a warming or cooling trend was initiated (increasing solar insolation after a minima, decreasing solar insolation after a maxima) CO2 feedback amplified either trend. Solar insolation variability alone is insufficient to explain the full temperature range in the ice core record -- the only factor with sufficient radiative effects is atmospheric CO2.

That's why temperatures and CO2 move together, even though the initial rise in temperature precedes the initiation of increasing atmospheric CO2. (Also applies to a decreasing temperature trend.)

[Publius6961]

BUMP!

[7thson]

A scientist? Does she have Doctor or Professor before her name? She's a frigging weather guesser!

[cogitator]

Does she have Doctor or Professor before her name?

Yes, actually, she does, in climate science no less.

[eyespysomething]

snip

At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished.

snip

snip

Dr. Patrick Michaels has demonstrated this effect is a common problem with ground- based recording stations, many of which originally were located in predominantly rural areas, but over time have suffered background bias due to urban sprawl and the encroachment of concrete and asphalt ( the "urban heat island effect"). The result has been an upward distortion of increases in ground temperature over time(2). Satellite measurements are not limited in this way, and are accurate to within 0.1° C. They are widely recognized by scientists as the most accurate data available. Significantly, global temperature readings from orbiting satellites show no significant warming in the 18 years they have been continuously recording and returning data (1).

The following link is where I found this cited information. I find it a good site for some basic facts, without the political hyperbole: Global Warming