Posted on 12/15/2007 11:18:40 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A small group of US experts stubbornly insist that, contrary to what the vast majority of their colleagues believe, humans may not be responsible for the warming of the planet Earth.
These experts believe that global warming is a natural phenomenon, and they point to reams of data they say supports their assertions.
These conclusions are in sharp contradiction to those of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which reached its conclusions using largely similar data.
The UN body of about 3,000 experts, including several renown US scientists, jointly won the award with former US vice president Al Gore for their work to raise awareness about the disastrous consequences of global warming.
In mid-November the IPCC adopted a landmark report stating that the evidence of a human role in the warming of the planet was now "unequivocal."
Retreating glaciers and loss of snow in Alpine regions, thinning Arctic summer sea ice and thawing permafrost shows that climate change is already on the march, the report said.
Carbon pollution, emitted especially by the burning of oil, gas and coal, traps heat from the Sun, thus warming the Earth's surface and inflicting changes to weather systems.
A group of US scientists however disagree, and have written an article on their views that is published in The International Journal of Climatology, a publication of Britain's Royal Meteorological Society.
"The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, doesn't show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming," wrote lead author David Douglas, a climate expert from the University of Rochester, in New York state.
"The inescapable conclusion is that human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming," Douglas wrote.
According to co-author John Christi from the University of Alabama, satellite data "and independent balloon data agree that the atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface," while greenhouse models "demand that atmospheric trend values be two to three times greater."
Data from satellite observations "suggest that greenhouse models ignore negative feedback produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects" of human carbon dioxide emissions.
The journal authors "have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases."
For Fred Singer, a climatologist at the University of Virginia and another co-author, the current warming "trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep sea sediments and stalagmites . . . and published in hundreds of papers in peer reviewed journals."
How these cyclical climate take place is still unknown, but they "are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on cloudiness, and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface and thus the climate."
Singer said at a recent National Press Club meeting in Washington that there is still no definite proof that humans can produce climate change.
The available data is ambiguous, Singer said: global temperatures, for example, rose between 1900 and 1940, well before humans began to burn the enormous quantities of hydrocarbons they do today. Then they dropped between 1940 and 1975, when the use of oil and coal increased, he said.
Singer believes that other factors -- like variations of solar winds and terrestrial magnetic field that impact cloud formations and the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface, and thus determining the temperature -- are much more influential than human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.
Wellll!
No grant money for them.
And that's the truth.
... there is still no definite proof that humans can produce climate change.
—
contrary to the consensus of a group of maroonic blatherers and their carbon-trading clique of opportunistic scamsters
BUT.. it’s “unequivocal.”
The UN body of about 3,000 experts, including several renown US scientists, jointly won the award with former US vice president Al Gore for their work to raise awareness about the disastrous consequences of global warming.
In mid-November the IPCC adopted a landmark report stating that the evidence of a human role in the warming of the planet was now “unequivocal.”
My God!
It’s cold outside... When is this global warming going to kick in...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
One person with a reproducable experimental result is a scientific consensus.
Thanks for that link!
You contradict yourself with the word, "reproducable", because this requires other scientists to reproduce the results, and a consensus among leading authorities that this has in fact been done.
I’m still waiting for them to verify their computer models....fat chance!
The Earth has cooled 0.05 degrees C in the last 10 years.
I wonder what that data does to the computer models.
No barf alert needed!
So they gave them what has long been a leftist politcal prize, since not a single climate expert produced a scientific paper worthy of recognition. Had to find some way to bestow some credibility. So how exactly did they promote peace?
Small vs Vast Majority? B.S. The author of the article lives in an echo chamber.
Sure, but the ice cores make it pretty clear CO2 has never been a significant driver of temperature in all the many thousands of years of history constructed.
As for recent anecdotal correlations, you might as well speculate that the stock market drives temp. Both have tended to go up this century. Or crime. Or even something going down, what the heck, speculate that its a negative correlation. Anything goes.
Now, therein lies the problem: pretty much all of the U.N.'s conclusions are based on very complex computer models. Given that our forecasters cannot predict the weather in the short term on a local or regional scale with any reasonable degree of certainty, I have see no reason (other than for political reasons) to believe the alarmist "sky is falling" predictions made by politicians and special interest groups that only view things from one angle. The recent tantrums (given life by idiot journalists) by the leftists, with regard to the so-called "climate crisis," only illustrates that their motivation is not scientific in nature but rather political.
Of course, there are powerful corporate interests behind the whole thing. For example, the idea of "carbon credits" and global taxes is brought to us by the same folks who came up with structured investment vehicles and sub-prime adjustable rate mortgages.
Milankovitch cycles are the collective effect of changes in the Earth’s movements upon its climate, named after Serbian civil engineer and mathematician Milutin Milankovich. The eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth’s orbit vary in several patterns, resulting in 100,000 year ice age cycles of the Quaternary glaciation over the last few million years. The Earth’s axis completes one full cycle of precession approximately every 26,000 years. At the same time, the elliptical orbit rotates, more slowly, leading to a 21,000 year cycle between the seasons and the orbit. In addition, the angle between Earth’s rotational axis and the normal to the plane of its orbit changes from 21.5 degrees to 24.5 degrees and back again on a 41,000 year cycle. Currently, this angle is 23.44 degrees and is decreasing.
This article is a stark example of the articles pumped out for the unwashed masses from the “man made global warming” crowd. Notice that it has no comparative facts. It is an opinion piece that blurts out raw facts without context.
I’ve noticed that if you actually compare articles from the two sides, there is MUCH MORE scholarship and compared and fairly explained raw data WITHIN CONTEXT from the “global warming is natural” crowd. The difference is actually startling in its abundance.
>>Carbon pollution, emitted especially by the burning of oil, gas and coal, traps heat from the Sun, thus warming the Earth’s surface and inflicting changes to weather systems.<<
Really? How much does it take to cause a noticeable change? And how do we know that increased CO2 causes the temperature to rise rather than the other way around. And how do we know there are not offsetting effects of carbon “pollution” that negate it’s “assumed” warming tendencies.
The author requires the reader to take so much on faith...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.