Convincing the climate-change skeptics

The Boston Globe ^ | August 4, 2008 | John P. Holdren

[Nipfan]

Too quick with the post button -

“hinge not in science on attacking the opposition”

should be -

hinge not on science but on attacking the opposition

[caseinpoint]

C’mon guys. Get with the program. He’s from Harvard. That means he doesn’t have to provide proof to the little people. We must learn to simply accept that being at Harvard means he is so much smarter than anyone else that his words are articles of faith. (By the way, I noticed the he is the Teresa and John Heinz professor there and his background appears not actually from the sciences but in the interaction between the sciences and public policy. He’s an administrator, not a scientist, methinks.)

[ETL]

THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE
by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD

ABSTRACT:

"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the product of oceanic respiration due to the well-known but under-appreciated solubility pump. Carbon dioxide rises out of warm ocean waters where it is added to the atmosphere. There it is mixed with residual and accidental CO2, and circulated, to be absorbed into the sink of the cold ocean waters. Next the thermohaline circulation carries the CO2-rich sea water deep into the ocean. A millennium later it appears at the surface in warm waters, saturated by lower pressure and higher temperature, to be exhausted back into the atmosphere. Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation.

Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases. Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause. Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase.

If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere."

http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html

_______________________________________________________________

The graph above represents temperature and CO2 levels over the past 400,000 years. It is the same exact data Al Gore and the rest of the man-made global warmers refer to. The blue line is temps, the red CO2 levels. The deep valleys represent 4 separate glaciation periods. Now look very carefully at the relationship between temps and CO2 levels (the present is on the right hand side of the graph) and keep in mind that Gore claims this data is the 'proof' that CO2 has warmed the earth in the past. But does the data indeed show this? Nope. In fact, rising CO2 levels all throughout this 400,000-year period actually lagged behind temperature increases ...by an average of 800 years! So it couldn't have been CO2 that got Earth out of these past glaciations. Yet Gore dishonestly and continually claims otherwise. Furthermore, the subsequent CO2 level increases due to dissolved CO2 being released from warming oceans, never did lead to additional warming, the so-called "run-away greenhouse effect" that Al Gore and his friends keep warning us about. In short, there is little if any evidence that CO2 had once led to increased warming during the past 400,000 years. -ETL

_______________________________________________________________

"The above chart shows the range of global temperature through the last 500 million years. There is no statistical correlation between the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years and the temperature record in this interval. In fact, one of the highest levels of carbon dioxide concentration occurred during a major ice age that occurred about 450 million years ago [Myr]. Carbon dioxide concentrations at that time were about 15 times higher than at present." [also see 180 million years ago, same thing happened]:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010405M

_______________________________________________________________

So, greenhouse [effect] is all about carbon dioxide, right?

Wrong. The most important players on the greenhouse stage are water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere.

In simple terms the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapor by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total tropospheric greenhouse effect (e.g., Freidenreich and Ramaswamy, 'Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,' Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264).

The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other 'minor greenhouse gases.' As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO2.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

_______________________________________________________________

Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many 'facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activities contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Second, having not succeeded in finding an alternative, they haven't even tried to do what would be logically necessary if they had one, which is to explain how it can be that everything modern science tells us about the interactions of greenhouse gases with energy flow in the atmosphere is wrong.

The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.

Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.

When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report), alarmists objected that maybe the readings of the radiosonde thermometers might not be accurate and maybe the hot spot was there but had gone undetected. Yet hundreds of radiosondes have given the same answer, so statistically it is not possible that they missed the hot spot.

Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you'd believe anything.

[MrB]

You don’t have to “convince” anyone of anything if you can just force it down their throats with the guns of government backing you.

[Laserman]

If you look at Mr. Holdren’s resume he is closely tied to Kerry-Heinz, Bill Clinton, and a raft of Liberal government committees. What he is doing here is angling for a post in an Obama administration, and to shore up his grant money flow channel. He has spent a lifetime sucking at the public teat!

[ETL]

If you look at the chart below, you will see that sunspot activity (during solar maxes--the individual peaks) has been relatively high since about 1900 and almost non-existent for the period between about 1625 and 1725. This period is known as the Maunder (sunspot) Minimum or "Little Ice Age".

From BBC News [yr: 2004]:
"A new [2004] analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years. Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past. They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer."..."In particular, it has been noted that between about 1645 and 1715, few sunspots were seen on the Sun's surface. This period is called the Maunder Minimum after the English astronomer who studied it. It coincided with a spell of prolonged cold weather often referred to as the "Little Ice Age". Solar scientists strongly suspect there is a link between the two events - but the exact mechanism remains elusive."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3869753.stm

It's really hard to imagine how this little ball of fire could have any impact on our climate at all.

But the main arguments being made for a solar-climate connection is not so much to do with the heat of the Sun but rather with its magnetic cycles. When the Sun is more magnetically active (typically around the peak of the 11 year sunspot cycle --we are a few yrs away at the moment), the Sun's magnetic field is better able to deflect away incoming galactic cosmic rays (highly energetic charged particles coming from outside the solar system). The GCRs are thought to help in the formation of low-level cumulus clouds -the type of clouds that BLOCK sunlight and help cool the Earth. So when the Sun's MF is acting up (not like now -the next sunspot max is expected in about 2012), less GCRs reach the Earth's atmosphere, less low level sunlight-blocking clouds form, and more sunlight gets through to warm the Earth's surface...naturally. Clouds are basically made up of tiny water droplets. When minute particles in the atmosphere become ionized by incoming GCRs they become very 'attractive' to water molecules, in a purely chemical sense of the word. The process by which the Sun's increased magnetic field would deflect incoming cosmic rays is very similar to the way magnetic fields steer electrons in a cathode ray tube or electrons and other charged particles around the ring of a subatomic particle accelerator.-ETL

____________________________________________________

There's a relatively new book out on the subject titled The Chilling Stars. It's written by one of the top scientists advancing the theory (Henrik Svensmark).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/books/t/1840468157-the_chilling_stars_the_new_theory_of_climate_change.htm

And here is the website for the place where he does his research:
2008: "The Center for Sun-Climate Research at the DNSC investigates the connection between variations in the intensity of cosmic rays and climatic changes on Earth. This field of research has been given the name 'cosmoclimatology'"..."Cosmic ray intensities – and therefore cloudiness – keep changing because the Sun's magnetic field varies in its ability to repel cosmic rays coming from the Galaxy, before they can reach the Earth." :
http://www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate

100,000-Year Climate Pattern Linked To Sun's Magnetic Cycles:
ScienceDaily (Jun. 7, 2002) HANOVER, N.H.
Thanks to new calculations by a Dartmouth geochemist, scientists are now looking at the earth's climate history in a new light. Mukul Sharma, Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth, examined existing sets of geophysical data and noticed something remarkable: the sun's magnetic activity is varying in 100,000-year cycles, a much longer time span than previously thought, and this solar activity, in turn, may likely cause the 100,000-year climate cycles on earth. This research helps scientists understand past climate trends and prepare for future ones.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020607073439.htm

From a well-referenced wikipedia.com column (see wiki link for ref 14):
"Sunspot numbers over the past 11,400 years have been reconstructed using dendrochronologically dated radiocarbon concentrations. The level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional — the last period of similar magnitude occurred over 8,000 years ago. The Sun was at a similarly high level of magnetic activity for only ~10% of the past 11,400 years, and almost all of the earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episode.[14]"

[14] ^Solanki, Sami K.; Usoskin, Ilya G.; Kromer, Bernd; Schüssler, Manfred & Beer, Jürg (2004), “Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years”, Nature 431: 1084–1087, doi:10.1038/nature02995, . Retrieved on 17 April 2007 , "11,000 Year Sunspot Number Reconstruction". Global Change Master Directory. Retrieved on 2005-03-11.

"Reconstruction of solar activity over 11,400 years. Period of equally high activity over 8,000 years ago marked.
Present period is on [the right]. Values since 1900 not shown."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/john-holdren

Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy

If you look at his website he is heavy on publications with policy description's and devoid of any scientific accomplishments. He also states that he “ welcomes media inquiries on the following subjects:

Arms Control
Defense
Energy
Environment
Global Warming/Climate Change
International
Nuclear
Nuclear Weapons
Science/Environment

Basically, he's in the policy prescription business, and doesn't have any real scientific credentials. He's an expert on pretty much anything the Boston Globe wants an expert on. This reminds me of the apocryphal New York Times headline, “World to End Tomorrow, < new line> Women, Minorities Disproportionally Impacted, Experts Say.” He's one of those reliable on-call experts ready to sanctify liberal prejudices with the Harvard Imprimatur.

[edzo4]

[CodeToad]

What does aliberal know about logic or credentials? They’ve managed to turn universities into laughing stocks.

[andy58-in-nh]

Funny, He didn’t provide a single piece of evidence.

Religions don't require evidence; only faith. The author carries on as though he were somehow especially credentialed to discuss climate science. He is not, because he is not a climatologist. Being a professor at Harvard and the Kennedy School of Government (a/k/a "Camelot High") does not imbue him with either a depth of knowledge on the subject of Earth's climate or mystical powers of revelation that allow him to see perfect evidence of causation where countless others find only a dense web of conflicting data.

What the Professor does not reveal in this article, other than a haughtily dismissive tone toward those with whom he disagrees, is his actual title: "Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy". 'Nuff said?

[PapaBear3625]

It was substantially warmer 62 million years ago prior to the demise of the dinosaurs than it is now. We found coal deposits in Antarctica. There are coal deposits in the Arctic regions.

Antarctica was not always where it is today. There's a thing called plate tectonics, where the continents shift position over geologic time

Over geologic time spans, a lot of climate change is caused by continents drifting in ways that affect ocean convection currents. When warm currents are prevented from flowing to polar regions, you get massive ice ages

The variability of the sun also can cause major climate change. See for example, the Maunder Minimum and it's correlation to the Little Ice Age 1645–1715

[enduserindy]

I would reccomend scientific evidence to cinvince us but hey who needs that anymore.

[Unam Sanctam]

Because science has nothing to do with open debate, after all...

[Stirner]

An interesting collection of data. I am a sceptic about anthropogenic global warming, but I have a question about the first passage you cite doesn’t seem accurate to me. Maybe CO2 works differently, but when I studied chemistry almost everything dissolves more in a solvent if the system is heated up. But the passage seems to say that warm water gives off CO2 into the atmosphere and cold water sucks it back out. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

[HartleyMBaldwin]

This article is a classic example of the logical fallacy of “begging the question”, or assuming an unproven value for a point on which an argument depends. Holdren takes several unproven points for granted, such as that human activity is a significant cause of climate change and that humans can exert perceptible influence on the earth’s climate.

While I’m posting, let me point out that to beg a question does not mean to call for that question, as the phrase is often misused by people who have heard it somewhere and who want to sound intellectual. This meaning is implied by the phrase, but is not its strict meaning. (Mini-rant off.)

[angkor]

John Coleman (Weather Channel Founder) "Global warming frenzy is threatening our civilization."

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html

"an amazing fraud; what a scam....There is no significant man made global warming.... If this weren't so serious, it would be laughable.... Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming.... stamping out the global warming scam is vital to saving our wonderful way of life."

[E. Pluribus Unum]

But the passage seems to say that warm water gives off CO2 into the atmosphere and cold water sucks it back out. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

CO₂ is a gas, not a solid. A gas condenses when cold, and expands when hot. The partial-pressure of a gas is a function of temperature. The colder the gas, the lower the partial-pressure, and the more of it will dissolve in water.

The carbonation in soft drinks is CO₂ dissolved in water.

Try shaking a cold can of Coca-Cola and a hot can of Coke, then pop them open.

Which one outgasses the most CO₂?

(Answer: the hot one)

[rellimpank]

-ping-

[ETL]

"James Hansen, the director of the agency's [NASA's] Goddard Institute for Space Studies, received a $250,000 grant from the charitable foundation headed by former Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz. Subsequent to the Heinz Foundation grant, Hansen publicly endorsed Democrat John Kerry for president in 2004, a political endorsement considered to be highly unusual for a NASA scientist.":
http://www.freedom.org/news/200607/12/morano.phtml

James Hansen (quote), from October 2004:

"Several years ago I received the Heinz Environment Award. I don't know who nominated me for that award or how the selection works."

"I am confident that it has no impact on my evaluation of the climate problem or on my political leanings."

"In the upcoming election I will vote for John Kerry."

Source: Columbia University.edu [pdf]:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/dai_complete.pdf

Also see: Teresa Heinz Kerry: Bag Lady for the Radical Left:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12187

NASA's Hansen Mentioned in [George] Soros Foundation's Annual Report:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/09/26/nasa-s-hansen-mentioned-soros-foundations-annual-report