Global Warming Facts

You'd have to have been living on a deserted island for some time not to have heard about global warming facts and all the supposed dangers! As I mentioned before, reading headlines about this issue and the subsequent predictions really had me feeling gloomy many days...that is until I delved into the topic more thoroughly!

I first heard an opposing view from my brother who has a Masters in environmental engineering from Georgia Tech. I figured if he wasn't convinced, maybe I shouldn't be either! I then came across a book by Chris Horner called The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism) This book looks at global warming facts from a fresh, often-ignored- by-the-media perspective! The biggest thing that struck me in this book was the history of many predictions for certain calamity ahead that turned out to be false alarms! This is not a fact that is ever mentioned by the media! "By the way, though we're reporting these disturbing forecasts for mankind's future, keep in mind, we've done this many times before and it turned out we were wrong!!" Wouldn't want the public to keep things in perspective, now, would they?! The topics are not always about global climate in these doomsday predictions, but climate has indeed been addressed. Horner relates in his book, that as recently as the 1970's, there were dire predictions about global cooling:

"The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind."Nigel Calder, International Wildlife, June 1975 (p. 55)

And, not surprisingly, humans were to blame for this cooling period!

"The rapid cooling of the earth since World War II is also in accord with the increased air pollution associated with industrialization and an exploding population."Reid Bryson, "Environmental Roulette," 1971 (p. 55)

Reading of actual instances in which fears and predictions that were publicized proved false, really opened my eyes! No longer do I blindly believe whatever the headlines declare-especially with regards to projections about the future. Their global warming facts and scenarios are not to be taken at face value. I'm not saying the media is to be completely ignored. I'm just saying that it is prudent and in your own best interest not to take everything you read to heart without first looking into it more fully.

To be honest, understanding the motivation behind such scare tactics, is not an inspiring study! The human side of it-why anyone would promote such a scenario-reminds me of the Billy Joel song, We Didn't Start The Fire. That is to say, history is full of human blunders, but, as I like to note, we survive the mistakes and seem to slowly move forward!

Back to the issue of global warming, the significant thing to note here-the good news- is that global warming is nothing like it is portrayed in the media. First the question of whether or not the earth is warming bears another look. And, if indeed it is warming, just as happened in the earth's past, such an event is generally beneficial overall and not something catastrophic!

Let's take a look at some of the issues in the global warming facts debate: greenhouse gases, melting ice glaciers, temperature records, rising sea levels, and "wild" weather.

The basic cry of the global warming alarmists is that man-made greenhouse gases are the root of all evil. The claim is that burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide (CO2, the primary "culprit") into the atmosphere, which then traps heat and leads to global warming. It can sound convincing, I admit, with the example given of a greenhouse...you can just picture it, can't you? Cars, factories, houses all burning fossil fuels day in, day out....ahhhh! The key thing we have to understand, however, is the role carbon dioxide plays in controlling the earth's atmosphere and temperatures.

When given a serious look, you can easily see that the Greenhouse Theory doesn't make sense. The earth's atmosphere has warmed only slightly since the 1940's despite the huge clouds of greenhouse gases emitted from human activities-this provides evidence that the human greenhouse effect must be so small that it presents little or no threat to the planet or its people (Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, p.36). So how then does carbon dioxide effect temperature?

Though you don't hear these facts in the news, recent research has shown that carbon dioxide is not the primary climate factor! This is based on satellite and high-altitude weather balloon data that shows the lower atmosphere is not trapping lots of additional heat due to higher CO2 concentrations. Further, the Antarctic ice cores show that the Earth's temperatures and CO2 levels have tracked closely together through the last three ice ages and global warmings (Singer, p. 36). Carbon dioxide has generally been a lagging indicator, rising eight hundred years after the temperatures rise-additional evidence that so-called greenhouse gases are not a force in recent global climate changes.

The confusion may have arisen when the ice core studies looked at samples centuries apart and noted correctly a strong relationship between CO2 concentrations and temperatures and determined that as CO2 levels rise, so do temperatures. But when the data was analyzed for decades versus centuries, something quite different emerged. Carbon dioxide changes are caused by temperature changes-not the other way around (Singer, p. 37)!!

It appears that the ocean gives up CO2 when it and the atmosphere warm. This stimulates tree and plant growth which then absorb CO2, creating more and larger roots and more soil carbon under lush grasslands (Singer, p.37). Sounds like a natural cycle to me!

Not all greenhouse gases are created equal, by the way. The most abundant and important one is.....water vapor!! Water vapor makes up about 60% of the natural greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide makes up about 20%, and ozone, nitrous oxide, methane, and several others make up the remaining 20% (Singer, p.40). A lot of water is evaporated every day as the Sun shines down on the Earth's vast oceans, and there is yet much scientific uncertainty about water's role as vapor or clouds....as far as warming or cooling effects, water is a "wild card (Singer, p.41)."

That said, there was an intriguing study by NASA and MIT's Richard Lindzen in 2001 about a huge climatic heat-vent in the Pacific in the planet's warmest spot. The results of this study strongly indicate that the Earth is quite active in regulating its atmospheric temperatures-something computer models fail to take into account (Singer, p.42). The findings of this study were confirmed an additional two times, yet the fact that the Pacific Ocean tends to quietly and naturally vent its extra heat back into outer space-protecting the biosphere-doesn't make the news (Singer, p42)!!! While I find that irritating, I am mostly in awe of such an intelligent design (or neat happenstance, if you lean that way).

A final note-you can see from this discussion that carbon dioxide is not the culprit it has been made out to be. While caring for the earth is a good thing, spending money for carbon credits is not something that is worthwhile or worth your hard-earned cash! A word to the wise!

One claim made in many news stories is that of melting polar ice caps. The fear here is that sea levels will rise dramatically bringing floods and devastation to millions. However, according to Dr. S. Fred Singer, a climate physicist and author of Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, Updated and Expanded Edition, sea levels are a product of conflicting forces (Singer, p.47).

Yes, warmer temperatures do melt more glacier ice. But warmer temperatures also evaporate more water from the oceans and lakes, and when this increased moisture in the air gets deposited on the polar ice caps and glaciers around the world, the ice caps and glaciers will actually grow (Singer, p.47). The news we hear about glaciers melting (or melting polar ice caps) is selective-yes, some glaciers are melting, but glaciers in other areas are advancing (Horner, p.63)! There is this nice balance between melting glaciers adding to sea levels and advancing glaciers subtracting from them.

Time is another important factor when considering melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels. Glaciers and ice caps melt slowly because their surfaces reflect away so much of the sun's heat. For example, the West Antarctic ice sheet which is 10,000 years past its last ice age, still has 7,000 years worth of ice to melt (Singer, p.47). Given that the earth's climate is historically variable, another cooling period is sure to intervene with this particular ice sheet's melting.

The world's longest recording of sea levels has been kept for more than a thousand years in Stockholm, Sweden. According to the keepers of this information, the sea level changes in response to climate variation since 800 A.D. have kept within a small range, with an average variation of close to zero (Singer, p.48).

Melting polar ice caps bring with them the fear that certain islands and cities will "sink," the Maldives and Tuvalu among them. Again according to Dr. Singer's book, these are non-issues, as far as them being danger signs as alarmists would have us believe. Tuvalu is geologically in a risky position, global warming or no global warming. Its atolls rest on volcanic rock that is gradually subsiding into the sea (Singer, p.49). Moreover, on top of this is slow-growing coral which also dies off as it sinks too far to get the sunlight required. Despite this predicament, the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite radars have found, since 1993, that Tuvalu's sea levels have fallen four inches over a decade. This is due to an El Nino/Southern Oscillation--a natural periodic phenomenon that does not affect long-term sea levels (Singer, p.49). The Maldives, with a population of 300,000, consist of 1,200 low-lying islands in the Indian Ocean that lie only one-two meters above sea-level. Because of this precarious circumstance INQUA (International Union for Quaternary Research) made the Maldives a priority research target (Singer, p.48). They determined that the sea level around the Maldives has been rising and falling for the past 5,000 years, and they see no reason to expect the Maldives to become flooded in the near future (Singer, p.49).

Venice is another location mentioned as being threatened by melting polar ice caps causing sea levels to rise. It just so happens, I was in Venice in October and November, 2008. While there, I was surprised to awaken one day to flooded streets! I had heard tales of Venice sinking, but this was a first-hand experience of the problem they face. A Gondolier mentioned to us, as he gave us a tour, that the flooding was a product of global warming. I wasn't so sure, but wanted to look into it. Well, according to the Italian National Research Council, the relative sea level in Venice has risen 23 centimeters between 1897 and 1983, but 12 of those centimeters was due to land subsiding in and around Venice (Singer, p.50). Although the city is erecting mobile barriers and internal water defense structures, it seems that it will eventually indeed sink due to the weight of the buildings and bridges on the soft soils of the coastal region-not because water levels overtake it, as is often implied (Singer, p.50).

When thinking about melting polar ice caps and sea levels, it's important to keep in mind the fact that we live on a planet where the climate has been changing constantly for the past billion years. There will always be an ebb and flow between land and water (Singer, p.52). Certain cities that have been built at or below sea levels-like Bangladesh and New Orleans-not surprisingly, will face problems with storm surges from hurricanes. But this is simply a risk inherent in building on waterfront areas-not some predictor of global doom. High-risk waterside building should be discouraged just as a matter of common sense!

Whenever there's a hot day now-a-days, you can be sure to hear it proclaimed as a portent of doom. I know I've seen headlines that would lead me to believe the world is heating up in a scary way. You'd think it'd be a simple matter-measuring the temperature and reporting it....it's the interpretation of information and the significance attributed to it that seem to cause problems..

For example, you may recall hearing that the 1990's was the hottest decade on record. But what gets left out of this report is that worldwide temperature reporting was incomplete for much of that decade due to the collapse and dissolution of the Soviet Union during that time. Thousands of Russian measuring stations closed, many of them in cold regions, as did many others around the world at the same time (The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism), Horner, p.113). As a reminder, Russia is a cold place! Obviously, such a hole in the reporting skewed the averages, but I certainly never heard mention of this issue amidst the reports I read!

Another thing that leads to confusion is the fact that we don't actually measure temperatures everywhere-just where we have thermometers. So as we apply new technologies/new sensors it can make a heat wave (on paper)-again, something I've never seen mentioned in media reports (Horner, p.115). Dr. Jay Wile talks about this same issue in his audio CD, "Eco-hysteria"(Track 5). Specifically he talks about two conflicting studies--both reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) in 1998. One stated that 1997 was the hottest year on record, and one stated it was the coolest! Big difference! The key here, according to Dr. Wile, is that the first report of the hottest year used ground-based temperatures. This approach is slightly biased because, as previously alluded to, these readings are primarily from where people live...and this naturally means the warmer parts of the world. The report that stated 1997 was the coolest year on record based this on satellite readings. This is accepted as the more accurate approach because the information is indeed global, taken from all over. Yet this second report did not get any media coverage!

Even though the media did not share the second report with the public, the NOAA itself likely keeps the most accurate temperature records in the world (Horner, p. 116). Looking at records from 1895 to 2005 you see some interesting facts about warming/cooling trends in the United States: there was a warming trend from 1895-1940 (with the steepest rate being 1910-1935)-this before significant use of fossil fuels! Then there were three and a half decades of cooling-this during the greatest growth of fossil fuel usage! There was another warming period from 1975-1998, but the rate of warming was less than the warming period of 1910-1935. So basically, temperatures are always changing, often with noticeable trends, but never with one obvious cause, and not in correlation with fossil fuel use or Greenhouse gas concentrations (Horner, p.117).

The last thing I'll say on this topic is regarding computer models predicting future weather/temperatures. Dr. Wile discusses this on "Eco-hysteria," noting that it is important to know if you have a good computer model before using it. One way to test a model that purports to predict future events is to put in past known values and see if the model successfully "predicts" past events. Well, guess what? The computer models we've all heard about did not pass this test (Wile, Track 6)! Even just using common sense, you probably have experience with incorrect weather predictions made for even just a week into the future. So claims regarding predictions into the distant future seem a bit far-fetched, I think! Besides, this world we inhabit is amazing in its ability to regulate conditions (see Greenhouse Gases page)-this is good news!

In the Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg notes that one claim of the global warming alarmists is that there will be an increase in extreme weather. From articles in Newsweek to the political Congressional Quarterly, reports seem confident that global warming is a real concern and will be the cause of all kinds of damaging weather. Al Gore has claimed that it is a known fact that global warming is driving El Nino, in turn causing more and more "wild" weather. Remember Hurricane Katrina, right? That was a busy hurricane year and the alarmists proclaimed it as proof of their theories, and an even busier hurricane year was predicted for the following year...but not one hurricane hit the US in 2006!! In fact, according to an AP report I read, "...no hurricanes at all struck the U.S. in 2000, 2001 or 2006. And during a less active period from 1970 to 1994, there were six seasons when no hurricanes hit this country ( http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090911/ap_on_re_us/us_where_are_the_hurricanes ). Briefly, as background information, El Nino is a naturally recurring phenomenon that has a 3-5 year cycle. The causes of this cycle are not clearly understood. The two most intense El Nino episodes of the 20th century occurred in 1982 and 1987.

So, on the one hand we see lots of media reports and talk of wild weather being a concern....yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as late as 2001 found that only precipitation and heavy precipitation had increased-no increase in tropical storms, or tornadoes, thunder days or hail were found in the areas analyzed. In an article in Science, it was noted that many statements we hear predicting extreme weather are not supported by climate science or by high-quality climate models. Other statements are just misleading. For example, Worldwatch Institute stated in 2000 that weather-related damage in the 1990's was five times more than in the 1980's, implying that the world is in peril of ever more extreme weather. Such a comparison doesn't account for the fact of a larger population inhabiting risk-prone areas with more and more assets to lose. For instance, while the population of the US has quadrupled over the last century, the Florida coastal population has increased more than 50-fold! Such increases in concentration of populations can result in misleading cost figures. Indeed, a 1999 American damage study of hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes found that there was no increase in such events in the 1990's and that the high losses were "...largely the result of societal changes and not major weather changes." (The Skeptical...) These findings have been substantiated by several other, new studies.

Once again, it seems to me that things are not as portrayed...I don't understand why the media insists on so much drama! It seems just one side of an issue gets presented with no balance from the opposing facts and perspective. Our climate and why it changes are things not completely understood as far as I can tell. Beyond the science, there are philosophical perspectives on weather and our role in it...Gregg Braden, mentioned elsewhere on this site, relates a story of a friend of his of Native American descent whom he watched "pray rain." Basically the friend performed an ancient ritual of his people and got the rain that was needed. There's the Biblical story, of course, of Jesus calming a storm at sea. And then there's the whole notion that we are co-creators of our experience to consider. Who knows? I have this sense that we are cared for and that that care involves a habitat (earth) that is able to adjust and balance things for us (like the air vents mentioned in the Greenhouse Gases page)....extreme weather is perhaps part of that balancing act, but maybe it's not a necessary thing. Maybe one day-when "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid (Isaiah: 11:6)..we will find that we don't need to experience violent weather to have balance-wouldn't that be nice?! But, meanwhile, in regards to doomsday predictions, it seems to me that things are much like they've always been-there are good years and bad years for extreme weather. The frequency of such events is not ever-increasing, as is often implied in the media. So, take a deep breath...I think I'll go outside and marvel at the wonders of our world!

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