Jan 30 2007
Science Says Global Warming A Natural Phenomena
The problem with the “Man-Made” Global Warming crowd has always been their ADMITTED lack of hard evidence. They supposed Global Warming was tied to human activity and ran from there – demonstrating a complete lack of the scientific method and making all their predcitions and assumptions no more scientifically based than an episode of Star Trek – feasible but not real.
Drudge is reporting what many of us engineers and scientists knew already, that Global Warming can be demonstrated to be a natural, recurring phenomena:
Two powerful new books say today’s global warming is due not to human activity but primarily to a long, moderate solar-linked cycle. Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years, by physicist Fred Singer and economist Dennis Avery was released just before Christmas. The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change, by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark and former BBC science writer Nigel Calder (Icon Books), is due out in March.
Singer and Avery note that most of the earth’s recent warming occurred before 1940, and thus before much human-emitted CO2. Moreover, physical evidence shows 600 moderate warmings in the earth’s last million years. The evidence ranges from ancient Nile flood records, Chinese court documents and Roman wine grapes to modern spectral analysis of polar ice cores, deep seabed sediments, and layered cave stalagmites.
These books are now on my must read list and maybe I wil have some time to blog about them. But the fact is if there evidence is this broad and consistent then their conclusions or many times more solid than fantasies that have been in the news to date. A goog theory is supported by the evidence, the historical record, and can predict some future outcomes. The “Man Made” theorists have to ignore conflicting data and records, and are not able to predict a damn thing. But when you see evidence confirming something from all these diverse and independent records you can be confident in your conclusions. The truth is when you see a record temperature it is always ‘since 19xx’ or ‘since ’18xx’. And since we STILL do not have accurate global records of temperature going back more than 20 years or so we should be wary of any conclusions that are solely based on that data.
If we want to address the challenges of the higher temperatures then address ways for society to adapt. Like saving the rain forest in South America and extasblishing a new one in the sub Sahara desert through desalination plants and terra forming. Let’s reclaim some of the endless (and useless) deserts. That would cost much less and produce much more benefits.
Skepticism has a cost so that sometimes its a good stance and some times its a stupid stance. In the global warming case, one can and should be skeptical about research on the extent and consequences of climate change and on ideas about how to deal with it. Trying to pretend that the earth isn’t getting hotter only makes sense if you work for Exxon.
I guess we have an answer to the question of what happens when you cross a Creationist with a Tobacco lobby spokesman.
What time-scale do you use to measure global warming? The true believers start at the lowest point of the little ice age — a truly miserable period of human history — and extrapolate the slight warming since then forward into the future.
The time-scale that should be used is at least a million years. If you do that you see that the Earth has undergone major swings in warming and cooling at approximately 100,000 year intervals, interrupted by warming cycles at shorter intervals. This represents ice ages, separated by distinct but relatively short-lived warm periods. We are nearing the end of one of those warm periods.
A true ice age would destroy civilization. Our real climate challenge is going to be preventing the next ice age. Pumping lots of CO2 into the atmosphere won’t do much good. The Late Ordovician Period, 440 mya was also an Ice Age. Back then CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today– 4400 ppm.
Global warming is created problem by a bunch of irrelevant people. Let’s see ….Gore (the inventor of the internet) who travels in private planes to make sure that we keep warming up so he can continue to talk bs…Laurie David(who?) a moron who out of the blue is an expert climatologist, also travels in private planes,writes textbooks and many others who threaten people who don’t agree with them. Nice ignorant bunch.
Jim:
Nobody is saying there hasn’t been any warming anywhere. But I have to say there are folks in Oklahoma and Texas who are seeing one of the coldest winters most of them can remember and they might have their doubts. But in truth it depends on where you go to take the temperatures, but as a general rule most people are not arguing whether there has been any warming. Just why.
Don’t conflate Creationists with skeptics as to the human component in global warming. That is stereotypical and irrelevant and makes you sound more like a snotty nerd than a scientist.
I just read The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt by William Northdurft and Josh Smith. I found the book very interesting. One of the most interesting things about the book was the description of some of the changes the world has undergone since the huge Dinosaurs existed in the Bahariya Depression. And this was only one period in a long long history.
At one time the earth was composed of only two units, a single enormous continent, called Pangaea, that stretched virtually from pole to pole with Africa at its center, and a single ocean, called Panthalassa, that covered the rest of the planet.
A mysterous mass extinction would wipe out 95% of all marine and land based life at the end of Paleozoic Era. It is thought that the ocean became stagnant and toxins built up in the atmosphere, literally poisoning life…and there were no people to blame it on. And this was a green house effect of really scarey proportions.
The planet has been through many such changes in its history and many mass extinctions which had nothing to do with human beings.
I think we make the mistake of assuming there is a “normal” to climate.
Change might be the norm. In fact the sea levels in the Gulf Coast off of Florida have been rising for 18,000 years, so obviously there is more going on there than human beings using fossil fuels.
From what I hear there is more and more dissent among scientists in regards to global warming and climate change.
And all Bush said was that we needed to meet the challenge of climate change, he never said anything about people being responsible for it.
But what the hell, maybe the scientists can have a conference at some swanky hotel in Europe where they can sit around burning up electricity talking and talking before they hop on a plane and fly home. I don’t see the people screaming the sky is falling making any changes in their own life styles. They can try to keep the third world poor and backward by using global warming as an excuse, but the poor countries of the world might not go for that.
By the way, it was 15 degrees here today.
Terrye,
Good points. Political problems are always intended to be solved at someone else’s expense.
And “normal” is simply the average of “extremes.”
Jim Harrison
Re: Power untilities and sequestering CO2.
Power companies, as with all businesses, are about making profits. They are not apt to fight something like the global warming controversy on high principal. They understand that this a political rather than a scientific discussion and, with the democrats in power, I suspect they will simply cut their losses and make the changes and pass the costs along (along with that, I think there may be subsidy $$ available to plant trees, etc.). The President, for his part, said several years ago that he would push policies that would achieve a reduction in pollutants in a business friendly way. Again, with his business background, he will tend to move beyond the politics, of this (essentially) sideshow so that he can stay focused on the real problems facing the country.
I tend to doubt the basis of the human caused warming meme, but then meteorology and climatology are substantially far afield from my background. I do think it’s important to keep in mind that all of the predictions are based on models of very complex systems (alternatively stated, they are guesses based on assumptions in the context of an almost mind-numbing number of variables). Good science doesn’t depend on consensus (again, that’s politics); good science is based, rather, on testable theories, and tends to be incremental in solving problems. Given the complexity of these systems, I would be highly suspicious of any concrete allegations of cause and effect. In the relatively short timeframe that this has been studied I would, rather, expect to see concientious scientists beginning to agree on some of the methods of testing the hypotheses. As it is, I see politicians threatening companies who fund alternative views, weathergirls threatening other weather readers, and the U.N. coming out with a PR stunt in which they will release a summary first to feed the political machine, and then release data in three months after any fallacies in the summary are digested and accepted as facts. As real science is absolutely dependant on the questioning of results, I would say that this isn’t likely real science.
For my part, when they can tell me for sure what the weather will be in 7 days, I will begin to have a little more confidence in their capabilites.
The people who study climate are very well aware that natural processes have led to all sorts of climate changes over the centuries. SCIENCE and other journals publish papers in almost every issue about how to measure and account for events such as the end-of-the-Permian extinctions, the general cooling down of the Earth that has taken place since the Eocene, the Little Ice Age, and so forth. Human-caused global warming is something that is superimposed on all the other cycles and trends. Everybody knows that. The good news is that some natural driver could tend to counteract the known effects of greenhouse gases. The bad news is that some natural driver could also reinforce the known effects of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, the greenhouse effect is not some mysterious process. It would be mighty surprising if increasing the CO2 and methane in the air didn’t warm things up. Predicting climate change is indeed complex and difficulty: the physics of greenhouses is not.
If dealing with climate change didn’t press an ideological hot button or threaten the bottom line of some extractive industries, nobody would dispute the current consensus about global warming anymore than anybody would try to deny the reality of evolution absent the threat it represents to their theological prejudices. It’s not as if the world is full of scrupulous observers of science who have a disinterested concern about climatology or biology.
About the utilities: . It is perfectly true that the utility planners take political realities into account when they assume that they will have to take steps to deal with global warming. The reason they expect political pressure, however, is that they understand that any administration, of any political persuasion, will eventually have to come up with limitations on greenhouse gases. Politics isn’t the independent variable here.
DGFX – He mentioned “global climate change” once at the end of his section on alternative sources of energy. I wouldn’t go overboard and say that indicates he’s embracing global warming theory.
And global cooling is a much worse disaster than global warming. Every tenth of a degree of cooling means shorter growing seasons, less food, more energy consumption. Add the fact that corn is being used to produce ethanol to burn up in cars to shorter growing seasons and failed harvests and you could see world food prices skyrocket. What’s that mean? More dead poor people from cooling than from warming.
this article really puts the warming/cooling debate into perspective. Warming would be much easier to adapt to than another ice age.
As a side note, some of you are probably old enough to remember back in the 70’s when the scare was global cooling. There were actually some scientists that were suggesting coating the polar regions with soot and diverting rivers to instigate a melting of the polar ice caps in an attempt to combat global cooling. Good thing we didn’t listen to them.
A long and hotly contested debate preceded the current consensus on global warming.
One would think so, Jim, but one would be wrong. The “consensus” of which you speak came about nearly two decades ago with virtually NO debate, as was noted by Professor Richard Lindzen in a speech in 1992.
I guess we have an answer to the question of what happens when you cross a Creationist with a Tobacco lobby spokesman.
You can come on here and insult us all you want, Jim, but, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 62 years on this planet, it’s that when any group chooses a highly emotionally charged approach to anything, depending on demagoguery, dismissive of contrary evidence, accompanied by accusations of stupidity and/or some other evil motivation for simply not buying into it, the basic premise is always suspect.
As a side note, some of you are probably old enough to remember back in the 70’s when the scare was global cooling. There were actually some scientists that were suggesting coating the polar regions with soot and diverting rivers to instigate a melting of the polar ice caps in an attempt to combat global cooling. Good thing we didn’t listen to them.
This whole debate is about money. Donations and grants to the “experts” for “research”. Also prestige for the likes of Gore and to keep his name in the forefront in case he decides to run again. He is not getting enough publicity denigating our country and our president in his speeches to the rest of the world otherwise.
And did anyone see Kerry getting cosy with the ex-president of Iran at Davos where he (Kerry) said the US is a pariah to the rest of the world? He would be wise never to run again. This episode alone would be ample fodder to trash him during the whole campaign. And God help us if this idiot ever won. I wish someone would tell me how come thise prominent democrats can make speeches in other countries downing the US and are never made to pay for it in any way. I wonder what would happen if a Republican did such a thing. Nevermind, I know what would happen. He would be hailed as a hero by our unbiased media. After all, trashing the US is the fashionable thing now.
JH,
Which is it: To challange GW is to be beholden to the oil industry or to be another dufus defending his beliefs against “modern science?” You are mixing up your templates.
I suspect that tax write-offs for environmentally friendly practices were the inducement to utilities.
Eco-phobia is another symptom of liberalism.
Eco-phobia is another symptom of liberalism.
Macker, I hear there IS “consensus” in the scientific community that Liberalism is a mental defect. Now that’s the kind of “consensus” that we can all agree on, heh.
Jim,
You will always accept the claims of the human-caused global warming supporters despite the science and I will always reject it because of the science. And that, in a nutshell, is the crux of the entire discussion.
To claim that the old scare was a new ice age while global warming is just the latest fad, is just silly. I was reading the journals back in the early 80s. There never was anything remotely resembling a consensus about ccoling. It was just an idea. Only somebody profoundly ignorant of how science works thinks that it is a debating society like a comment thread on a blog. Of course, even the ice-age meme is not so dumb as the suggestion that a cold snap somehow refutes global warming. If you’re going to talk like that, you might as well work on television.
Duh.
If Global Warming and COOLING weren’t part of natural phenomena; you’d have no “Earth Sciences.” Nor could you explain the Grand Canyon. Or Niagra Falls. See? First nature cools down. Ice forms … and the ice “grows longer.” Then, it recedes.
This happened so long ago, you can’t even ask grandpa.
As to what humans are doing? It seems we’re fore-stalling the next ice age. Given that you’re “supposed to get one every 10,000 years. Earth holds these “records.” Just as a geologist can read “stuff” from rocks. (Even where Osama was hiding. Before he began hanging up fabric “disguises.”) And, if Osama knew enough to fool ya; why not just go ahead and suspect a lot of people who want to be on TV, will curb what they may have been taught. In exchange for fame.
Meanwhile? The next time you run into a weather forecaster? Ask them what they’re planning (in terms of garb. Or umbrellas. For. Oh, say. 7 days away.) It won’t be accurate, ya know? You could just as well ask a gypsy.
The media’s left the reality based world awhile back. As soon as they had Nixon’s head? And, he resigned? They set about delivering the same “powerful” news to create the same sorts of “changes” … when people went ahead and voted for their “non-approved-views.”
But don’t feel bad. It happened to Lincoln. The more famous the press person? The more characterized Lincoln was as an ignorant ape.
Now, if those people had their say? You’d be putting up bars in front of the Lincoln Memorial; because the “artists” would have depicted him as a gorilla. Of course, they didn’t. Time passed.
Which is what the media idiots are counting on, actually. That they fleece you with their ideas. And, when you go home and figure it out? Well, it’s like the gypsies work it, too. They stop you in front of your bank. They count on your being greedy. And, they tell you stories. Where you go into your bank. And, come out with savings that took you years to earn. And, when you get home? What does your package contain? Ripped up newspaper.
Shows ya, besides lost dogs, “halp” wanted, and garage sales, what exactly is keeping the print folk in business?
I’d ask about the TV “talking heads” … but I noticed they’re getting greyer. And, old in the tooth. Without too much talent bubbling up behind them. You think that’s a great sign of success?
I don’t.
Of course, even the ice-age meme is not so dumb as the suggestion that a cold snap somehow refutes global warming.
Of course, Jim; how stupid of us. It’s just that it caught us all by surprise to have someone of your obviously superior intelligence stop by here and set us all straight.
Jim H,
“Fad” is a good word to use for your GW chicanery. 40 – 50 years ago we were in a cool period, and indeed there were doom headlines about a coming ice age.
You claim that GW is man-induced, but other than “scientific consensus”, and saying you’ve read lots of journals, you present no facts, which is not surprising because there is no real consensus on why global temps have risen slightly last couple decades. (I tend to believe CPs posts about natural solar cycles.) Slinging insults and smug retorts at those who question the premise doesn’t help your argument (much like rest of the euro/enviro leftists). I’m not a scientist (an engineer), but a little skepticism, logic, common sense, and research go a long way. And I believe it is NOT fact that CO2 causes warming, it is merely a corelation to the current period.
You know you can grow cucumbers in cold climates if you grow ’em in greenhouses. But maybe it’s just an accident that the cucumbers grow in the greenhouses. Correlation isn’t causation, after all.
An immense amount of empirical research has been published that tends to support the thesis that observed warming is due in part to human activities. As the scientists published the studies that presented this evidence, other scientists attempted to shoot them down. They didn’t succeed, and the vast majority of the critics eventually came to change their minds. The back issues of SCIENCE and the archives of web sites like REAL CLIMATE document this very real debate, which belonged to real science. Meanwhile, the ideologically motivated skepticism exhibited on this site is now clearly a hobbyhorse of cranks like the still defended notion that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS or the theological fantasies of Intelligent Design.
By the way, it’s pretty strange to claim “there is no real consensus on why global temps have risen slightly last couple decades.” The consensus may be in error–that’s always a logical possibility–but aren’t the various surveys of the opinions of climatologists and the official conclusions of learned societies pretty good evidence that there is indeed a consensus?
actually it would be great if the debate were really about global warming, instead it’s really about global hot air. the champion of this faux drama was originally the infamous “club of rome”. they kicked this off originally with the ‘coming ice age’ in the 70’s. a casual review of this group leads to their political agenda–one world government based on a socialist model–said simply the “rule of the elite”. by the early 80’s when they realized communism was failing they gave up on controlling the people and instead focused on controlling the means of production. soon to be born was global warming. if you read the koyoto agreement (their magnus) it is basically a control mechanism for each country’s economic engine all wrapped up in the feel good argument that it’s necessary so as to control man made global warming–a warming that occurs with or without us. buried deep in the koyoto statement is the startling fact that 100 years from now the planet’s temp will be X if we enforce all of the treaty’s demands at a cost 100’s of billions, perhaps trillions of dollars and more dangerously a much larger government footprint. if we don’t enforce the demands temperature X will be reached, are you sitting down, six years earlier!
me, i trust the process that had the Wright brothers taking flight on a home made bi-plane and 65 years later we landed on the moon!
OK, Jim, I’ll bite: About what percentage, roughly, of global warming is attributable to human activity (as opposed to the sun, volcanoes/geothermic vents, oceanic activity, etc.)? Ten percent? Fifty percent? Ninety percent? High enough that if all human activity were to cease, so therefore would global warming (or climate change, or whatever you now call it)?
Simply stating that a consensus of real scientists agree on anthropogenic global warming won’t be enough. A lot of us are skeptical because we know that certain political hacks are running around using this global warming/climate change thing to try to enact laws to pry us out of our cars (or at least push us into hybrids), use less energy to heat our humble homes, and now (in California) to make us give up traditional light bulbs by 2012 — all to stave off a disaster that some of us are skeptical is even coming and that probably couldn’t be staved off with these methods if it were.
It’d help the debate if we saw less assertion of authority and more numbers.