Natural Science Forum / Physics / General Physics / November 2008

November 21, 2008
Global Warming? Bring it On!
By Gregory Young

The argument propounded by the dubious United Nations' Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Anthropogenic (human-induced)
Global Warming (AGW) is willfully fraudulent. The report has been vigorously
and critically undermined, scientifically denounced and found wanting from
both notable scientists here and abroad.

In spite of this fact, it is likely that the new U.S. Democratic Congress
and Administration will once again proclaim that they know better than we do
about such things.  Get ready for them to move surreptitiously under the
guise of Global Climate Control in an effort to enhance their own legacies
and pocketbooks.  To be sure, the Left hears nothing but their own
incestuous voices, despite the voices of clarity and reason that abound
around them.  And there are many, many distinguished dissenters against the
charade of AGW.

Take for instance the Founder of the Weather Channel and eminent
Meteorologist John Coleman who has stated:

There is no significant man made global warming.  There has not been any in
the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the
future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed.  But
mankind's activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the
natural forces.

Through all history, Earth has shifted between two basic climate regimes:
ice ages and what paleoclimatologists call "Interglacial periods".  For the
past 10 thousand years the Earth has been in an interglacial period....
[where] the Earth warms up, the glaciers melt and life flourishes. Clearly
from our point of view, an interglacial period is greatly preferred to the
deadly rigors of an ice age.  Mr. Gore and his crowd would have us believe
that the activities of man have overwhelmed nature during this interglacial
period and are producing an unprecedented, out of control warming.

Well, it is simply not happening.  Worldwide there was a significant natural
warming trend in the 1980's and 1990's as a Solar cycle peaked with lots of
sunspots and solar flares.  That ended in 1998 and now the Sun has gone
quiet with fewer and fewer Sun spots, and the global temperatures have gone
into decline.  Earth has cooled for almost ten straight years.  So, I ask Al
Gore, where's the global warming?

There is an abundance of solid data to back these conclusions up.  For
example, new measurements from the NASA/ESA spacecraft Ulysses show that the
sun's current period of low activity goes beyond an extended dearth of
sunspots. Solar activity has dropped to the lowest levels since recording
began some 50 years ago.  Current experts, such as Veizer, Shaviv, and most
recently Svensmark et al., and Patterson, suggest that changes in the output
of the sun caused the most recent climate change. They convincingly argue
that increased cosmic radiation acts as a catalyst for cloud formation in
earth's atmosphere. This, in turn, leads to a general cooling of the world's
climate if the pattern persists.

Ironically, during the 1970s while some (including NASA's James Hansen) were
hysterically promoting the schizoid fears of a new ice age hitting the world
in a few decades, a new frenzy over Global Warming and Climate Change was
just beginning at Scripps Ocenaographic Institute in San Diego, CA. It was
started by one of their most esteemed scientists Roger Revelle, the father
of Oceanography.  His work correlated the increases in carbon dioxide, CO2
(a laboratory defined greenhouse gas) to atmospheric warming.  Revelle later
moved to Harvard and encouraged his students, including Al Gore, to rehash
the data.

Since then the research methods have clearly gotten out of hand. Many
avenues of research have proven repeatedly useless.  Even Roger Revelle
understood that there were greater variables at play than the trace gas of
CO2.

Before he died, Revelle gave interviews and wrote letters stating that CO2
and its greenhouse effect did not warrant extreme countermeasures. He told
Omni Magazine, in March 1984, that "CO2 increase is predicted to temper
weather extremes" -- not cause them.  One cannot argue that CO2 was a
causative factor -- especially since CO2 was apparently following
temperature trend -- not moderating it.  It seems none of his followers,
Gore in particular, heeded his words.

There is a huge problem with the idea that Carbon Dioxide, or CO2, is a
globally polluting gas, much less one that causes climate change and global
warming. Even though some data seemed to initially substantiate the AGW
thesis, these ideas were later proven to be wrong. (Those derived from ice
core data were especially damning.) Australian Climatologist Dr. David Evans
has done yeoman's work on this issue.

Often forgotten in the argument is the fact that CO2 is only a trace
component of the atmosphere. For every million molecules of other gases in
the atmosphere (such as nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen), there are only 385
molecules of CO2.

It is a fact that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have varied widely over
geological time. The peak was estimated to be some 20-fold higher than at
present (+6,000 ppm) -- and the low about 200 ppm below today's. (Everyday
office air concentrations often exceed 1,000 ppm CO2.)

Meteorologist John Coleman perspicaciously asks:

How can this tiny trace upset the entire balance of the climate of Earth?
How can a trace element possibly be the cause of systemic Global Warming?
It can't.  That's all there is to it; it can't....  Carbon dioxide does not
cause significant global warming.

Increased levels of CO2 has more likely benefited all life forms on the
planet, summarizes Coleman.  Many other scientists have come to the same
conclusion.

Robinson, Robinson & Soon, in their cogent 2007 published research paper
found here, provided empirical evidence that invalidates AGW alarmists
hypotheses. They also found overwhelming support for the general benefits
that are derived from natural global warming.

Here is the summary of their findings:

1- A review of the research literature concerning the environmental
consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the
conclusion that increases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have
produced no deleterious effects upon Earth's weather and climate. There are
no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human
hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other green house gases
are causing or can be expected to cause unfavorable changes in global
temperatures, weather, or landscape. There is no reason to limit human
production of CO2, CH4, and other minor green house gases as has been
proposed.

2- Predictions of catastrophic global warming are based on computer climate
modeling, a branch of science still in its infancy. The empirical evidence -
actual measurements of Earth's temperature and climate - shows no man-made
warming trend. Indeed, during four of the seven decades since 1940 when
average CO2 levels steadily increased, U.S. average temperatures were
actually decreasing.

3- Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth.
Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in
hydrocarbon use and minor greenhouse gases like CO2 do not conform to
current experimental knowledge.

4- While major green house gas H2O substantially warms the Earth, minor
green house gases such as CO2 have little effect.... The 6-fold increase in
hydrocarbon use since 1940 has had no noticeable effect on atmospheric
temperature or on the trend in glacier length.

5- Solar activity and U.S. surface temperature are closely correlated....,
but U.S. surface temperature and world hydrocarbon use are not correlated.

6- We also need not worry about environmental calamities even if the current
natural warming trend continues. The Earth has been much warmer during the
past 3,000 years without catastrophic effects. Warmer weather extends
growing seasons and generally improves the habitability of colder regions.

7- Human use of coal, oil, and natural gas has not harmfully warmed the
Earth, and the extrapolation of current trends shows that it will not do so
in the foreseeable future. The CO2 produced does, however, accelerate the
growth rates of plants and also permits plants to grow in drier regions.
Animal life, which depends upon plants, also flourishes, and the diversity
of plant and animal life is increased.

Dr. Michael Griffin, the new NASA Administrator, looks at climate change in
a refreshingly contrarian fashion. He has stated:

To assume that [climate change] is a problem is to assume that the state of
earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could
have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it
doesn't change.

There are other fundamental objections to the AGW theory:

(1) The infamous "Hockey Stick" statistical debacle, nicely summarized here,
effectively cherry-picked data from tree rings to estimate temperature
change over the past 1000 years. The report erroneously declared that the
largest increases in world temperature occurred in the 20th century. These
results could not be reproduced by anyone.  The U.S. National Academy of
Sciences (NAS) later found the statistical methods first employed
inappropriate and the findings bogus.

(2) The reported NASA temperature data glitch discovered by Canadian
Computer Analyst Steve McIntyre that wrongly kicked all temperature records
up several tenths of a degree was a severe setback for AGW modelers.  This
software "failure" was overseen by one of AGW's fiercest proponents, the
notorious Dr. James Hanson.  NASA's GISS and Hanson have recently come under
fire again for poor data collection methods and questionable accuracy.

(3) As recently presented in American Thinker, Lord Monckton competently
summarizes for us that many of the highly publicized AGW "facts" are simple
documented anomalies of natural climate cycling -- designedly misrepresented
for the cause of AGW.

To wit:  The Oceans are not catastrophically rising nor are they warming.
In fact, the oceans have been cooling since 2003. The Snows of Kilimanjaro
are not melting but ablating because of friction due to a cooling atmosphere
and natural cooling trends.  The world's 160,000 glaciers are not suddenly
receding, but appear to be re-advancing, including those ice shelves in
Antarctic and the polar ice sheets, all of which cycle regularly in ice
mass. Lord Monckton, a science-journalist, provides even more evidence here.

(4) Finally let us not forget the astute investigation of automated weather
stations by US Meteorologist Anthony Watts. Watts painstakingly discovered
that a large fraction of the nation's 1,200 stations have been wrongly sited
in man-made heat-absorbing centers. (Examples include locations on rooftops,
on slabs of heat absorbing concrete, next to air conditioners, diesel
generators and asphalt parking lots, even at sewage treatment plants. Some
are located in areas experiencing excessive nighttime humidity, and at
non-standard observing heights, including one actually sinking into a
swamp.) Watts' discovery profoundly undermined the veracity of historical
temperature data documented in the United States -- data that had been used
by AGW proponents.

There are three indisputable and fundamental facts that were wantonly
ignored in the UN's IPCC sham of a report.  The UN breathlessly but
insidiously "forgot" to include the specifics that:

(1) The Earth has largely benefited by past warming cycle's and that these
previous "warmings" had nothing to do with man's activities. These earlier
natural cycles were not catastrophic events; they were, in fact, beneficial
to all life forms. They provided warmer and longer growing seasons, more
areas available for crops, etc. We know, for instance, that Greenland was
once green, that Eric the Red planted and grew grapes in what is now Nova
Scotia, Canada, that the Romans planted grapes in England, etc.

(2) Solar/Sun Spot activity is the originator of most climatic change and
most weather patterns on Earth.  It is king.  There is no larger factor of
influence.  CO2 influence is negligible and pales in comparison. CO2 follows
the trend of temperature; it does not cause it.

(3) Subordinate to solar activity alone, atmospheric water vapor/cloud
formation and movement is the largest known variable that influences
temperature changes in the atmosphere of the earth, and the earth's oceans.
Water vapor in the atmosphere is around 1000-10,000 times as important as
atmospheric CO2.

These three quintessential and pivotal factors are not even discussed in the
UN's IPCC report. This exclusion should raise a red flag in any intelligent
mind.  That's why so many of us are yelling from the rooftops about the
absurdity of the report itself!

Instead of a true and open discourse, we see the daily dribble from the MSM
and various liberally usurped science journals, dishonestly and falsely
alleging a "consensus" when there is none.

Indeed, arrayed against the arcane burlesque of the United Nations IPCC with
its politically selected 2500 Scientists, of which a core group of 600
exists, and a relatively small number of mediocre "scientists" here and
there across the American landscape who have suddenly found notoriety or
grant money in the global warming cause, are 31,072+ legitimate and viable
scientists (of which I am one) who signed the American Petition Project
declaring the Global Warming Hypothesis bogus found here, here and here.  We
openly refute the UN's conclusions.

Here's the Petition Statement we dissenters signed in opposition:

"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming
agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other
similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the
environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the
health and welfare of mankind.

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon
dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the
foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and
disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific
evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many
beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the
Earth."

Let me assure you that we're not in good humor, nor take it kindly to be
slurred and ridiculed by taking the other side in this debate.  And our
numbers are still growing.  Indeed, we're angry that the vast majority of
American Scientists will not be heard by the media.  We're dismayed over the
fact that the Global Warming fiasco has become politically popular and
expedient to those left-wing politicians and power-brokers whose sole aim is
to literally tax everything with a carbon footprint and give them control
over all life, hidden within their PC guileful pretence to save the planet.
They wish to save no one but themselves.

And the tide turns further.  Of the 2500 originally aligned scientists and
putative authors of the UN's IPCC report some 500 are no longer faithful to
Big Al's errand. Many of these scientists discovered that their individual
findings and comments were willfully misrepresented. All participant
conclusions were unilaterally changed to adhere strictly to the United
Nations objective of building support for world taxation and rationing of
industrially useful energy.  Since the original IPCC report (and there have
been some 4 others now formally issued), the defecting 500 scientists have
issued public statements challenging global warming. Approximately 100 of
these scientists are now open defectors. Others are currently suing the UN
for the misuse of their good names and research. It is difficult to see why
a thinking person would even consider the IPCC report as legitimate.

The entire IPCC process is but obfuscation by the secular and atheist Left.
It has allowed the Left to conflate the vanity of secular opinion with
scientific and/or moral truth. There is an easy and immediate remedy for
their debacle. Will Rogers stated it simply:  "When you are in a hole ...
stop digging.... Please!"

Dr. Gregory Young is a neuroscientist and physicist, a doctoral graduate of
the University of Oxford, Oxford, England. He is currently involved with a
privately funded think-tank engaged in experimental biophysical research.

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November 21, 2008 - 12:19:28 PM EST