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Top 10 Climate Myth-Busters for 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
By Steven Milloy
"I've made up my mind. Don't confuse me with the facts." That saying most
appropriately sums up the year in climate science for the fanatic global
warming crowd.
As Al Gore, the United Nations, grandstanding politicians and celebrities,
taxpayer-dependent climate researchers, socialist-minded Greens, climate
profiteers and other members of the alarmist railroad relentlessly continued
their drive for greenhouse gas regulation in 2007, the year's scientific
developments actually pointed in the opposite direction. Here's the
round-up:
1. Cracked crystal balls. Observed temperature changes measured over the
last 30 years don't match well with temperatures predicted by the
mathematical climate models relied on by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), researchers reported.
The models predict significantly warmer atmospheric temperatures than
actually occurred, despite the availability of more and better quality data
and improved modeling efforts since the late-1970s.
"We suggest, therefore, that projections of future climate based on these
models be viewed with much caution," the researchers concluded. Read more.
2. The big yellow ball in the sky. The Sun may have contributed 50 percent
or more of the global warming thought to have occurred since 1900, according
to a new historical temperature reconstruction showing more variation in
pre-industrial temperatures than previously thought.
The researchers found that "the climate is very sensitive to solar changes
and a significant fraction of the global warming that occurred during the
last century should be solar induced." Read more.
3. Pre-SUV warming. Another new temperature reconstruction for the past
2,000 years indicates that globally averaged temperature 1,000 years ago was
about 0.3 degrees Celsius warmer than the current temperature. Since that
climatic "heat wave" obviously wasn't caused by coal-fired power plants and
SUVs, the current temperature is quite within natural variability, deflating
alarmists' rash conclusions about the warming of the past 50 years. Read
more.
4. A disciplined climate. Runaway global warming -- the alarmist fantasy in
which a warmer global temperature causes climatic events that, in turn,
cause more warming and so-on in a never-ending positive feedback loop -- was
cornered by new data from researchers at the University of
Alabama-Huntsville (UAH). The new research sheds light on the mechanism by
which the atmosphere self-regulates. Read more.
5. A gnarly wipeout. Climate alarmists gleefully surfed a 2005 study that
claimed greenhouse gas emissions would slow Atlantic Ocean circulation and
cause a mini ice age in Europe. But an international team of researchers
reported that the intensity of the Atlantic circulation may vary by as much
as a factor of eight in a single year. The decrease in Atlantic circulation
claimed in the 2005study falls well within this variation and so is likely
part of a natural yearly trend, according to the new study. Read more.
6. A pollution solution. A new study reported that the solid particles
suspended in the atmosphere (called "aerosols") that make up "brown clouds"
may actually contribute to warmer temperatures -- precisely the opposite
effect heretofore claimed by global warming alarmists.
"These findings might seem to contradict the general notion of aerosol
particles as cooling agents in the global climate system .," concluded the
researchers. Read more.
7. Lazy temperature? Researchers reported that the rate of manmade carbon
dioxide (CO2) emissions was three times greater during 2000 to 2004 than
during the 1990s. Since increasing atmospheric C02 levels allegedly cause
global warming, the new study must mean that global temperatures are soaring
even faster now than they did during the 1990s, right?
Wrong. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of
Commerce's National Climatic Data Center, ever-changing global temperatures
are in no way keeping pace with ever-increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels. Read more.
8. Don't plant that tree! Researchers reported that while tropical forests
exert a cooling influence on global climate, forests in northern regions
exert a significant warming influence on climate. Based on the researchers'
computer modeling, forests above 20 degrees latitude in the Northern
Hemisphere -- that is, north of the line of latitude running through
Southern Mexico, Saharan Africa, central India and the southernmost Chinese
Island of Hainan -- will warm surface temperatures in those regions by an
estimated 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. Read more.
9. The Tropical Arctic. Dutch researchers reported that during a period of
intense global warming 55 million years ago -- when the Arctic Ocean was as
warm as 73 degrees Fahrenheit -- there was a tremendous release of
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But which came first, the warming or
the greenhouse gases?
It was the warming, according to the researchers. Read more.
10. Much ado about nothing. In a report to Congress, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency revealed greenhouse gas regulation to be quite the fool's
errand. In estimating the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases 90 years
from now under both a scenario where no action is taken to reduce manmade
emissions and a scenario where maximum regulation is implemented, the
estimated difference in average global temperature between the two scenarios
is 0.17 degrees Centigrade.
For reference purposes, the estimated total increase in average global
temperature for the 20th century was about 0.50 degrees Celsius.
That's what researchers have reported this year. And let's not forget the
spanking a British high judge gave Al Gore's movie for all its scientific
inaccuracies and the thrashing non-alarmist climate scientists gave to
alarmist climate scientists in a debate sponsored by the New York debating
society Intelligence Squared.
Al Gore and the alarmist mob claim the debate about the science of global
warming is "over." Given the developments of 2007, it's easy to see why they
would want it that way.
Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk
science expert, an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the
Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Top 10 Climate Myth-Busters for 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
By Steven Milloy
"I've made up my mind. Don't confuse me with the facts." That saying most
appropriately sums up the year in climate science for the fanatic global
warming crowd.
As Al Gore, the United Nations, grandstanding politicians and celebrities,
taxpayer-dependent climate researchers, socialist-minded Greens, climate
profiteers and other members of the alarmist railroad relentlessly continued
their drive for greenhouse gas regulation in 2007, the year's scientific
developments actually pointed in the opposite direction. Here's the
round-up:
1. Cracked crystal balls. Observed temperature changes measured over the
last 30 years don't match well with temperatures predicted by the
mathematical climate models relied on by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), researchers reported.
The models predict significantly warmer atmospheric temperatures than
actually occurred, despite the availability of more and better quality data
and improved modeling efforts since the late-1970s.
"We suggest, therefore, that projections of future climate based on these
models be viewed with much caution," the researchers concluded. Read more.
2. The big yellow ball in the sky. The Sun may have contributed 50 percent
or more of the global warming thought to have occurred since 1900, according
to a new historical temperature reconstruction showing more variation in
pre-industrial temperatures than previously thought.
The researchers found that "the climate is very sensitive to solar changes
and a significant fraction of the global warming that occurred during the
last century should be solar induced." Read more.
3. Pre-SUV warming. Another new temperature reconstruction for the past
2,000 years indicates that globally averaged temperature 1,000 years ago was
about 0.3 degrees Celsius warmer than the current temperature. Since that
climatic "heat wave" obviously wasn't caused by coal-fired power plants and
SUVs, the current temperature is quite within natural variability, deflating
alarmists' rash conclusions about the warming of the past 50 years. Read
more.
4. A disciplined climate. Runaway global warming -- the alarmist fantasy in
which a warmer global temperature causes climatic events that, in turn,
cause more warming and so-on in a never-ending positive feedback loop -- was
cornered by new data from researchers at the University of
Alabama-Huntsville (UAH). The new research sheds light on the mechanism by
which the atmosphere self-regulates. Read more.
5. A gnarly wipeout. Climate alarmists gleefully surfed a 2005 study that
claimed greenhouse gas emissions would slow Atlantic Ocean circulation and
cause a mini ice age in Europe. But an international team of researchers
reported that the intensity of the Atlantic circulation may vary by as much
as a factor of eight in a single year. The decrease in Atlantic circulation
claimed in the 2005study falls well within this variation and so is likely
part of a natural yearly trend, according to the new study. Read more.
6. A pollution solution. A new study reported that the solid particles
suspended in the atmosphere (called "aerosols") that make up "brown clouds"
may actually contribute to warmer temperatures -- precisely the opposite
effect heretofore claimed by global warming alarmists.
"These findings might seem to contradict the general notion of aerosol
particles as cooling agents in the global climate system .," concluded the
researchers. Read more.
7. Lazy temperature? Researchers reported that the rate of manmade carbon
dioxide (CO2) emissions was three times greater during 2000 to 2004 than
during the 1990s. Since increasing atmospheric C02 levels allegedly cause
global warming, the new study must mean that global temperatures are soaring
even faster now than they did during the 1990s, right?
Wrong. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of
Commerce's National Climatic Data Center, ever-changing global temperatures
are in no way keeping pace with ever-increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels. Read more.
8. Don't plant that tree! Researchers reported that while tropical forests
exert a cooling influence on global climate, forests in northern regions
exert a significant warming influence on climate. Based on the researchers'
computer modeling, forests above 20 degrees latitude in the Northern
Hemisphere -- that is, north of the line of latitude running through
Southern Mexico, Saharan Africa, central India and the southernmost Chinese
Island of Hainan -- will warm surface temperatures in those regions by an
estimated 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. Read more.
9. The Tropical Arctic. Dutch researchers reported that during a period of
intense global warming 55 million years ago -- when the Arctic Ocean was as
warm as 73 degrees Fahrenheit -- there was a tremendous release of
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But which came first, the warming or
the greenhouse gases?
It was the warming, according to the researchers. Read more.
10. Much ado about nothing. In a report to Congress, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency revealed greenhouse gas regulation to be quite the fool's
errand. In estimating the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases 90 years
from now under both a scenario where no action is taken to reduce manmade
emissions and a scenario where maximum regulation is implemented, the
estimated difference in average global temperature between the two scenarios
is 0.17 degrees Centigrade.
For reference purposes, the estimated total increase in average global
temperature for the 20th century was about 0.50 degrees Celsius.
That's what researchers have reported this year. And let's not forget the
spanking a British high judge gave Al Gore's movie for all its scientific
inaccuracies and the thrashing non-alarmist climate scientists gave to
alarmist climate scientists in a debate sponsored by the New York debating
society Intelligence Squared.
Al Gore and the alarmist mob claim the debate about the science of global
warming is "over." Given the developments of 2007, it's easy to see why they
would want it that way.
Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk
science expert, an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the
Competitive Enterprise Institute.
