Scientific findings run counter to theory of global warming

San Diego Union Tribune ^ | 1/25/2002 | Joseph Perkins

[dalereed]

Scientific findings run counter to theory of global warming

Joseph Perkins

SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

January 25, 2002

Oh dear. What will the doomsayers say now? How will they explain away yet two more scientific studies that clearly contradict the global warming orthodoxy?

For much of the past 14 years, since the United Nations created its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we've been warned that human activity is overheating the planet.

And nowhere is that supposed to be more evident than in Antarctica, the proverbial bellwether for planetary climate change.

Indeed, in recent years there have been any number of scary reports claiming that the White Continent is warming up and shedding its ice shelves at a startling rate.

Which has led to the most ominous forecasts by environmental advocacy groups such as the National Resources Defense Council.

Glaciers and polar ice packs will melt," it direly predicts, in its global warming "fact sheet."

"Sea levels will rise, flooding coastal areas. Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense. Droughts and wildfires will occur more often. Andspecies will be pushed to extinction."

So how do the climatory Cassandras on the environmental left explain the new study, appearing in the current edition of the journal Nature, that shows a net cooling, rather than warming, on the Antarctic continent between 1966 and 2000?

What particularly amazes is that the cooling trend has actually gotten more pronounced since the mid-1980s. Air temperatures recorded continuously over a 14-year period ending in 1999 declined by 0.7 degrees in Antarctica's polar desert valleys.

The study's lead author, limnologist Peter T. Doran of the University of Illinois at Chicago, was almost apologetic about the results produced by his team of scientists.

"This is an unexpected twist," he said, tacitly acknowledging that his data is inconsistent with global warming theory.

It's the same thing with the study, published in a recent issue of the journal Science, which concludes that the giant West Antarctic Ice Sheet is actually getting thicker, rather than melting.

Authored by Ian Joughin, a geologist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology and Slawek Tulaczyk, a professor of earth sciences at the University of California Santa Cruz, the study found that the ice sheet is gaining 26.8 billions tons of ice a year.

Much like Doran, Joughin sounded almost regretful about his scientific findings, recognizing that it contradicts the global warming orthdoxy.

"It could be this part of the ice sheet is not necessarily sensitive to global warming," he said.

There is a curious thing going on in the scientific community. Scientists who produce research that does not comport with accepted wisdom on global warming – like Doran and Joughin – feel compelled to disavow their findings. Or, at least, to suggest that their results are aberrational.

Indeed, a few years back, the Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, released a study that found the continental United States has actually gotten cooler, rather than warmer, over the past third of a century.

Yet, the scientists who produced the center's study went to great lengths to assure that their findings did not undermine prevailing notions about global warming.

Then there was the study by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla.

They took Antarctic ice core samples from the last three glacial cycles (the transitional periods between ice age and planetary warming) to ascertain the relation between rises in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and increases in planetary temperature.

Based on global warming theory, there should first have been a rise in carbon dioxide levels followed by a rise in temperature levels. But, in fact the opposite actually occurred.

Yet, the Scripps scientists insisted that their results were not inconsistent with global warming theory.

It seems clear that much of the scientific community is in denial about global warming. That scientists are so empathetic to the IPCC, the NRDC and other global warming doomsayers that even those scientists who produce research that contradict the global warming orthodoxy are unwilling to admit as much.

Perkins can be reached via e-mail at joseph.perkins@uniontrib.com.

[editor-surveyor]

" You can look at all the glaciers all over the globe and everywhere, they are retreating. This is an absolute, no doubt about it fact lie."

That's why the weight of the increased depth of ice in Antarctica is causing huge bergs to break loose?

That's why the North Pole, which used to be mostly open sea, has been mostly frozen since the 1940's?

[alaskanfan]

I think the earth is undeniably warming. You can look at all the glaciers all over the globe and everywhere, they are retreating.

It makes you wonder how those glaciers got there in the first place. Could it be that the Earth goes through periods of cooling and warming? Could it also be that these periods of cooling and warming have nothing to do with the insignificant human and how many suvs he drives or how many campfires are going?

We put to much importance on our existence on earth and the effects thereof.

[headsonpikes]

"I know Cassandra, and sirs you are not Cassandras." LOLOL!!!

Your #18 BTTT!

[staytrue]

The polar regions may be anomolies. Plus, our data from the polar regions, I suspect is incomplete. At most of the glaciers in the world, people have been visiting there on a yearly basis. The glacial retreat is better documented, is worldwide and is probably a better indicator than the polar data.

[jimkress]

For rational, non-political, non-agenda driven scientists, experimental data always trumps theory. Especially when the theory is known to be incomplete, inexact, and untested - like the models driving the global 'warming' debate.

It is absurd for the 'scientists' quoted to question their results just because they appear to be at odds with an essentially unvalidated theory like that of global 'warming'.

[liberallarry]

There is a curious thing going on in the scientific community. Scientists who produce research that does not comport with accepted wisdom on global warming – like Doran and Joughin – feel compelled to disavow their findings.

But they do publish it. That's why its called science and not b******t.

[Phantom Lord]

I think the earth is undeniably warming. You can look at all the glaciers all over the globe and everywhere, they are retreating. This is an absolute, no doubt about it fact.

Yep, and it has been happening for millions of years, if not billions. Ice Age comes, Ice Age ends, Ice Age comes, Ice Age ends. I am no scientist, but I will bet every earthly possession that I have that another Ice Age will happen.

[financeprof]

The polar regions may be anomolies.

They are anomolies all right--anomolies for global warming theory. All climate models that are the basis for global warming predictions imply that CO2 induced warming should be most acute at the poles, and especially Antarctica (in part because industry-related aerosol particulates that can mitigate warming are far less prevalent in the southern hemisphere). This finding is a major contradiction to the predictions of global warming theories. The global warming Jeremiahs can try to spin this any way they want, but it poses a fundamental problem for them. It is hard to overstate the importance of this result.

[PoorMuttly]

As a child in NY, there were 6' snow drifts EVERY winter. Now....warm mud. If I have been bamboozled, it is by my eyes, and other senses. Once the Canada Geese came here, and never left...things have been strange. An indicator. People have been killed in odd, unusual weather. That is all that I am saying. The Earth corrects itself, accomodates all sorts of things. What's behind it, I do not know...but I have observed various changes...perhaps corrections, balances.

I report what I perceive. T-shirts in January in NY is noteworthy. What happens in Antarctica is of little interest to the new bananna-farming industry in New England.

[FourtySeven]

Thanks!

[FairWitness]

Then there was the study by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla.
They took Antarctic ice core samples from the last three glacial cycles (the transitional periods between ice age and planetary warming) to ascertain the relation between rises in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and increases in planetary temperature.
Based on global warming theory, there should first have been a rise in carbon dioxide levels followed by a rise in temperature levels. But, in fact the opposite actually occurred.
Yet, the Scripps scientists insisted that their results were not inconsistent with global warming theory.

I saw that data presented on the Discovery Channel (hope I remember that right) last night. The show was primarily about how the oceans act as a "global air conditioner", cooling the tropics and warming the high latitudes. There was a chart showing how there have been repeated, significant temperature swings over the last (at least) hundreds of thousands of years. Only the last few thousand have seemed to be "stable". The message we were supposed to take home was that we should hold our breath, tiptoe around and do as little as possible (except cut back on CO2) to disturb the balance. If we don't behave as dictated by the global warming crowd, we supposedly will be responsible for disrupting the ocean heating/cooling currents and we will have a disaster. My conclusion from the data would be that we humans have very little if anything to do with climate changes, and what we should be spending our "energy" on is developing coping strategies for the next ice age.

[Leisler]

They have been retreating for 60,000 years. I live on Cape Cod, which was formed by the earth being pushed ahead of a hugh glacier which covered all of Canada down into Massachusetts. It must of been the smokey fires of the Neanderthals that caused the first man made global warming. :)

[FairWitness]

Climate Change: New Antarctic Ice Core Data

"The main significance of the new data lies in the high correlation between GTG concentrations and temperature variations over 420,000 years and through four glacial cycles. However, because of the difficulty in precisely dating the air and water (ice) samples, it is still unknown whether GTG concentration increases precede and cause temperature increases, or vice versa--or whether they increase synchronously. It's also unknown how much of the historical temperature changes have been due to GTGs, and how much has been due to orbital forcing, ie, increases in solar radiation, or perhaps long-term shifts in ocean circulation."

[FairWitness]

GTG = "greenhouse trace gases"

[Phantom Lord]

The show was primarily about how the oceans act as a "global air conditioner",

I remember just a few short years ago the envirowackos trotted out some study in support of their stance on global warming and the computer models show this and the computer models show that, and damnit, look, the computer models say so so it has to be true!

Well, it was quickly discovered, but rarely reported, the computer models the scientists use in their study LEFT OUT THE OCEANS!!! They didn't but 75% of the earths surface into their computer models!

[Ole Okie]

There is NO grant money for global non-warming!

BINGO! You have now disclosed the reason for "global warming".

Well, that and the ambition of power hungry socialists and communists who have the solution for all the world's problems if only they had central control of the planet. NOT.

[MaeWest]

Thanks for the ping and a BUMP in the name of legitimate science!

[eno_]

Lemme guess: Ithaca?

[mafree]

bttt

[stands2reason]

Actually a little warming might not be all that bad.

"Hi, Chicago? This is Austin. Speak for your @#$%ing self!"