How likely is a human-caused climate catastrophe?

Summary for London Conference at Brunel University Aug 29 to Sept 2, 2002

"Environmental Catastrophes and Recovery in the Holocene"

How likely is a human-caused climate catastrophe?

S. Fred Singer
Science and Environmental Policy Project, Arlington, VA 22202 <singer@sepp.org>

The major question before the public is: How important is the human influence on climate warming? A more fundamental question, however, should be: Is there a measurable warming trend? Based on the preponderance of data, the answer seems to be: No. We therefore expect little future warming --- a temperature rise of at most 1°C by 2100; measurable but hardly catastrophic.

Contrary to much empirical evidence, there appears to be wide acceptance by the media and the public of the results of theoretical climate models. These predict: (i) The accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere will accelerate during this century; (ii) Global mean temperature will increase by up to 5.8°C [1], and (iii) Climate catastrophes will cause huge economic and ecological losses and endanger human health.

However, the balance of evidence suggests that the Earth is not warming and that models greatly exaggerate the climate effects of increasing greenhouse gases. A U.S. National Research Council report [2] has highlighted but not explained the disparity between different data sets: While weather-station thermometers report a substantial warming trend at the Earth's surface, microwave sensing units (MSU) on weather satellites, and also radiosondes carried in weather balloons, show little if any warming of the atmosphere in the last 22 years. [Figure 1] Climate models all predict the opposite, namely a stronger warming trend for the atmosphere than for the surface. Thus, the actual observations do not validate the theoretical models.

In further investigating this puzzling discrepancy involving different observing methods, we hypothesize that the recent measurements of surface trends may not be credible. We note that while there is general agreement that the global climate warmed before 1940, and then cooled slightly until about 1975, well-controlled surface temperature data for the United States and Europe do not show any appreciable post-1940 warming, after correction for local urban warming ("heat islands"). [Figure 2] This lack of warming throws doubt on the widely reported global surface trend. Furthermore, proxy data from tree rings, ice cores, etc. show no post-1940 warming trends; many even show a cooling trend after 1940. The observations of Arctic sea-ice shrinking, deep-ocean warming, glacier-length changes, and sea-level rise can all be explained as delayed consequences of earlier (natural) climate warming. They are all in good accord with the hypothesis that the Earth's climate has not warmed appreciably in the last 60 years.

The geological evidence is also convincing. For example, temperature measurements from ice cores in Greenland [Figure 3] clearly show the huge warming that took place at the end of the most recent ice age episode about 15,000 years ago. Since then, we have been in a warm interglacial period, the Holocene, which has seen large natural climate changes: The record shows clearly the Holocene Climate Optimum 8000 to 5000 years ago, the Medieval Warm Period about 1000 AD, followed by the cold Little Ice Age that made life in Europe very difficult. Around 1850 AD the climate suddenly warmed, till about 1940. As the authors state, however: "Temperature cools between 1940 and 1995." [3]

Thus the preponderance of data seems to contradict the commonly held wisdom that a substantial warming is currently taking place. Nevertheless, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change even asserts that this warming is human-caused [1]. The IPCC predicts substantial temperature increases during this century as the level of atmospheric greenhouse gases rises. But any such prediction is based on climate models, and these have not been validated by past data. We conclude that as of now, natural climate fluctuations, likely of solar origin, are sufficiently large to hide the much smaller anthropogenic temperature rise expected to result from increasing GHG.

Danish meteorologists have demonstrated the strong correlation between solar activity and temperature in the past 150 years. [4] Even stronger proof that the Sun controls climate changes on a time scale of decades comes from isotopic measurements on a stalagmite.[5] [Figure 4] Carbon-14 is produced in the Earth's atmosphere by cosmic rays, whose intensity is controlled by solar activity. The Oxygen-18 isotope is a measure of temperature. As can be seen, the year-by-year correlation is striking, extending over a period of nearly 4000 years.

Thus, action to "combat" global warming is hard to justify when the data show no warming that can be assigned to human causes, when economists conclude that higher CO2 levels and a warmer climate would be beneficial rather than harmful [6], and when proposed schemes to control greenhouse-gas emissions are largely ineffective [7]. Considering the high cost of such controls and their political nature, the Kyoto Protocol, as President George Bush has stated, is "fatally flawed" and should be abandoned.

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References

1. UN-IPCC. "Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis." Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001

2. National Research Council. "Reconciling Observations of Global Temperature Change." National Academy Press. Washington, DC. Jan. 2000.

6. S. Fred Singer. "Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate." The Independent Institute, Oakland, CA. (second edition, 1999). p.25.

S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist, is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, and the president of the Arlington (Virginia)-based Science & Environmental Policy Project, a non-profit policy institute. [SEPP is an association of working scientists concerned with providing a sound scientific base for environmental policies.] He has held several academic and governmental positions, including as the first director of the US Weather Satellite Service (now part of NOAA), deputy assistant administrator for policy of the Environmental Protection Agency, and most recently, chief scientist of the U.S. Department of Transportation. He devised instruments used to measure atmospheric parameters from satellites and was first to point to and calculate the human-based production of atmospheric methane, an important greenhouse gas and source of stratospheric water vapor. He is author and editor of a number of books, including Global Effects of Environmental Pollution (Reidel Publishing Company 1970), Global Climate Change (Paragon House 1989), and Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate (Independent Institute 1997 and 1999).

Algore refuses to debate global warming with this man. He is afraid of him, big time.

Algore and Singer were scheduled to appear on Larry King Alive together regarding the matter. When Algore found out Singer was also going to be on he cancelled his appearance and came on LKL at a later date as the sole guest.

Singer is a man who should be paid great attention to on these matters.

Algore refuses to debate global warming with this man.

Gore was on a show, a long time back, talking about global warming. He was sitting next to a scientist, who basically agreed with him on the "big issue", but was smirking the whole time Gore talked beacuse of Gore's lack of understanding of the subject.

But this information will keep us from forcing everyone to ride the bus! How can we expect to have any control over people if mommy earth is gonna be O.K.?

Better keep this information under wraps.....

Get real: The universe is an undulating mass of energy constantly subject to change.

Man is a grain of sand within the universe, so miniscule, that his loss is felt only by a few and the changes he has made are miniscule as well and are incomparable to the massive floods, hurricanes, typhoons, volcanic spews, earthquakes unprovoked by mans actions. The actions of the universe itself are so massive, they are beyond our calculations.

But earthlings love mathematics. If they can derive a formula and say this "will be", they will do it. When they find out that that doesn't quite work, they derive a second formula, etc..

So we like to put the universe in order but the floods ahead, the volcanoes, the earthquakes are quesses as to "WHEN" and their effects become quesses also. And so too is the temperature of the earth in 50 years or 500 years.

Better to spend your money on cleaning up the pollution in the freshwater waterways.

Sac

Algore refuses to debate global warming with this man. He is afraid of him, big time.

Gore is a dolt. Of course he's afraid to debate Singer.

Gore is a dolt. Hmmm, that has a nice ring to it.

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