January 2005

A Climate Change Glossary
US Environmental Protection Agency, Jan 01, 2003
Carbon Sequestration. The uptake and storage of carbon. Trees and plants, for example, absorb carbon dioxide, release the oxygen and store the carbon. Fossil fuels were at one time biomass and continue to store the carbon until burned.

Carbon sequestration by grasslands in a CO2-enriched world
CO2science.org, Oct 20 2004
Enough has been learned, however, to know that soils beneath grasslands will significantly increase their carbon-storing prowess as the atmospheric CO2 concentration continues its upward trajectory; and every extra bit of carbon storage helps, especially that which comes automatically, courtesy of the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content.

No realistic way to stabilize CO2
Financial Times, Jul 02, 2004
“Energy rationing without tears”that should have been the title of Lord Browne’s column (“Small steps to limit climate change”, June 30). He imagines that the world’s nations, via a series of “small steps”, could stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) at 500 to 550 parts per million by 2050 “without doing serious damage to the world economy”. This is pie in the sky. A study in the November 1, 2002 issue of the journal Science, co-authored by 18 energy and climate experts, including several who worry about global warming as much as Lord Browne, examined possible technology options that might be used in coming decades to stabilise atmospheric CO2 concentrations, including wind and solar energy, nuclear fission and fusion, biomass fuels, efficiency improvements, carbon sequestration and hydrogen fuel cells.

U.S. carbon dioxide piped, pumped into Canadian oil well
Environment News Service, June 28 2004
A partnership among U.S., Canadian and European researchers has developed a new approach that is one of the first to successfully store carbon dioxide (CO2) underground. Carbon sequestration is being evaluated internationally as a means of long-term carbon dioxide storage.

Et tu, Edison?
Competitive Enterprise Institute, Apr 27, 2004
The Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the association of shareholder-owned electric power companies, opposes the Kyoto Protocol, the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, and kindred proposals to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2), the inescapable byproduct of the carbon-based fuelscoal, oil, and natural gasthat supply 86 percent of all the energy Americans use. Why, then, is EEI pressing the Bush Administration to institute an early credit programthe accounting framework and political setup for Kyoto-style energy rationing? Edison has a lot of explaining to do.  

CO2 Dumping: Are They Joking?
 Cooler Heads Coalition, July 24 2002
Environmental pressure groups are succeeding in their efforts to stop scientific experiments with long-term deep-ocean sequestration of carbon dioxide. On July 2, an international consortium gave up on its application to 5,000 gallons of liquefied CO2 into ocean 3,000 feet below the surface off the island of Kauai in Hawaii. The purpose was to determine its dispersal and effects on ocean chemistry.

 Where has all the Carbon Gone?
 Cooler Heads Coalition, July 11 2001
As environmentalists continue to harp on the evils of carbon dioxide, they may want to notice the lack of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Although carbon dioxide emissions are up almost 40 percent in the past 20 years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has decreased or remained the same, according to an article in Science (July 6, 2001).

“Antarctica, Warming, Looks Ever More Vulnerable” – “A continent is quickly changing. The questions are how and why.” (New York Times)

Antarctica, however, is not warming. While the enhanced greenhouse hypothesis insists the Antarctic should demonstrate the most dramatic response to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels due to its cold, dry atmosphere, the simple fact is the Antarctic is not cooperating.

South Polar air samples record atmospheric CO₂ rising from 328 ppmv to 373 ppmv subsequent to the 1949-1974 temperature increase – almost 15% increase apparently without affecting Polar temperatures, while startling temperature changes of ~4 C (+ve and -ve) are recorded in periods when we know atmospheric CO₂ was increasing at a more leisurely rate.

A treasured hypothesis insists increasing atmospheric CO₂ should lead to increasing temperature and the South Polar super-cold, super-dry air mass should respond dramatically. Well, we looked for the CO₂ increment and it is obvious. We looked for the temperature increment and… what? Found it missing? There it was, gone?

We’ve already had the “you could see the warming if it wasn’t being hidden by the cooling (which is being hidden by the warming)” thing – see “Stratospheric Cooling?” What is Big Warming going to come up with now – “Please Miss, the ozone hole ate my Antarctic warming”?

The shock and awe resulting from the massive tsunami that hit Indian Ocean nations Dec. 26 has left many wondering what could have caused such a disaster and if there is anything humans can do to control or mitigate future events.

Some quickly suggested that an increase in the frequency of natural disasters such as the tsunami were a harbinger of what we have in store because of the increase of Earths greenhouse gases resulting from the burning of fossil fuels.
Nothing could be further from the truth, says Daniel Sarewitz, a professor of science and society and director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes at ASU.

In an article in The New Republic, Rising Tide The Tsunamis Real Cause, Sarewitz and Roger Pielke Jr., of University of Colorado, Boulder, say that tying the tsunami and other natural disasters to human induced climatic change is both scientifically and morally unsupportable.

“Reducing emissions is important, but it will not reduce vulnerability to disasters, Sarewitz adds.

Sarewitz notes that while the world has seen a sharp increase in natural disasters, from around 100 per year reported in the early 1960s to 500 800 per year by the early 21st century, the cause is not an increase in the frequency or severity of such events, but an increase in human vulnerability caused by where people live and how they live.

“We know how to prepare for disasters, but the world has not made this a high enough priority, Sarewitz says. If disaster preparation received the same political attention as global warming, significant progress could be made.

While more people live in coastal regions, especially in poor and developing countries, and while it is true that sea levels are rising, there is no research that suggests that the Kyoto Protocol or even more ambitious emissions reduction proposals would significantly reduce the impacts of disasters like hurricanes and tsunamis.

“It is absurd to suggest that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is an important part of the answer, Sarewitz says.

Yet coastal populations will continue to swell, putting more people in a vulnerable position should another tsunami strike. Sarewitz adds that tools to mitigate the effects of these disasters are at hand.

“Most tools needed to reduce disaster vulnerability already exist, such as risk assessment techniques, better building codes and code enforcement, land-use standards, and emergency preparedness plans, both researchers say. The question is why disaster vulnerability is so low on the list of global development priorities.

For Sarewitz, the answer is clear: Fruitful action on climate change and disaster vulnerability should proceed simultaneously.

“This will not happen until the issues of climate change and disaster vulnerability are clearly separated in the eyes of the media, the public, environmental activists, scientists and policymakers, Sarewitz says.

FONT face=”arial, verdana, helvetica” size=2>One of the more interesting “Sky Is Falling” postulations made in recent years has been the claim that the apparently cooling stratosphere is masking observation of anticipated warming in the troposphere. Quaintly, such claimants point to satellite MSU (Microwave Sounding Unit) stratosphere data suggesting such cooling to try to invalidate satellite MSU troposphere data, data which obstinately declines to demonstrate the trend Big Warming requires to maintain the scare and nurture the cash cow.

One of the reasons suggested for stratospheric cooling is that more infrared (re-)radiation from the Earth is being trapped by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and is thus unavailable to warm the stratosphere (you are required to ignore any thought of saturation to believe this). Another, more plausible explanation would be reduced stratospheric ozone (ozone is a greenhouse gas) from whatever cause and the stratosphere is thus capturing less energy and cooling. Possible reasons for ‘loss’ of ozone are not addressed here but no, we are not staunch supporters of the Montreal Protocol either.

Typically, the cry at JunkScience.com is “Show me the data!” and, happily for our band of wandering skeptics, the required data is readily available here. Since most people exhibit signs of distress when faced with tabular data we have provided a representation in graphical format (linked from the thumbnail below). Two startling anomalies are obvious in the data, the stratospheric response to explosive volcanic eruptions of El Chichon in 1982 and Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. Although they are of limited value we know that people will ask, especially as they are not marked on the graph so, entire series trend value: y = -0.0038x + 0.5538 and first split 12/78 – 12/93 trend value: y = -0.0021x + 0.4581.

We’ve all heard the claims (repeatedly) that the Earth is currently hot and getting hotter. In fact, a quick sort on the GISTEMP near-surface amalgam shows the top 7 global mean temperatures since 1880 have occurred in the period following our Pinatubo shading. Logically then, if “global warming” (enhanced greenhouse) causes stratospheric cooling and 7 of the 11 years in our final trend split are the hottest years, at least since 1880, we expect to see stratospheric temperatures cooling, no? Let’s look at the graph…

… uh-oh – that’s not Big Warming’s desired result is it. What could have gone “wrong?”

Perhaps the near-surface record is now so UHIE-corrupted that the planet wasn’t really that warm? Possible but they won’t go there because that would trample the enhanced greenhouse thing about increased infrared capture in the troposphere denying the stratosphere and causing cooling there (which is masking the warming in the tropospheric record – right?).

Recovery in the stratospheric ozone? Nope, that would upset too many fellow travelers because there’d be no need to continue attacking chlorine/bromine compounds as alleged ODS (Ozone Depleting Substances) – imagine a world where you couldn’t get rid of so useful a compound as methyl bromide – unthinkable!

Hmm… a tough one. Big Warming seems to have [another] problem.

How long, do you suppose, before they come up with the old shell game: stratospheric cooling being masked by tropospheric warming?

No? Why not? Big Warming, the three-M coalition of Misanthropists, Miscreants and Misguided are certainly masters of the art of circular reasoning. The troposphere is really warming, despite what your lying eyes and empirical data tell you, it’s just being masked by the cooling stratosphere – which you could see to be cooling except that cooling is being masked by tropospheric warming. Quod erat demonstrandum.

More for amusement than anything the two tracks prove here then is the combination showing both the lower troposphere and lower stratosphere along with a few important influences noted.

Presenting data in this fashion does not help Big Warming’s campaign since, absent obvious external factors, one track neither consistently mirrors nor mimics the other – not what we might expect if warming one cools the other.

We might surmise that components of Mt. Pinatubo debris increased ozone destruction, contributing significantly to stratospheric cooling as the atmosphere cleared following that event. It is interesting that there appears to be two step reductions in stratospheric temperature following both the explosive volcanic events that caused initial warming – that would not appear consistent with enhanced greenhouse-induced cooling since increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has been more or less consistent over the period. We might surmise a lot of things but we find no support for Big Warming’s contention though.

Obviously we’re still having trouble with the “it’d be hotter if it wasn’t cooled” thing.

Once again claims are flying thick and fast regarding dramatic, in fact, unprecedented Arctic warming.

Once again, we look at the available data, now updated to the end of 2004.

Once again, we find the claims to be dead flat wrong. Click on the following thumbnails to view the full size images in a new browser window.

We begin, as is our want, with the bare annual mean temperature track for the region 64N-90N. We use this particular dataset since the Arctic Circle describes a line of latitude near but south of the north pole marking the northernmost point at which the sun is visible on the northern winter solstice and the southernmost point at which the midnight sun can be seen on the northern summer solstice – roughly the parallel of latitude approximately 6633′ north and we are thus confident of having captured the boundary between the North Temperate and North Frigid zones.

Rather obviously it indicates a sustained warming, followed by a cooling and recovery.

Of course, some people want (and others need) rather more aggressive highlighting of apparent trends and so we present the same data with shading and trend lines added. This next graphic shows the very same data with split trends and shading to highlight the warming trend 1880 through 1938 (the warmest year in the series). Had the pre-1938 trend continued there would certainly be some Arctic warming to talk about. Just as well we are not staunch advocates of post hoc, ergo propter hoc or we’d be claiming that increasing the rate of atmospheric CO₂ increment stops Arctic warming.

We would be remiss if we did not point out the most significant warming in the series.

And now, trends 1918-1938 and 1966-2003 compared (yes, we know data is available in the series to include 2004 but the region’s annual mean temperature fell two-thirds of one degree C from the partial series maximum value of 2003).

Finally, let’s look at the low-high trend values for the warming periods before and after the cooling demonstrated 1938 – 1966.

In other words, we’ll consider three decades of cooling an anomaly in the series and take a longer perspective – how has the Arctic recovery from the Little Ice Age varied over roughly one hundred and twenty years?

The answer is, it hasn’t. The post-LIA recovery seems to be trundling along the same as before, despite an Earth-insignificant setback of a few decades in between. The last 3-4 decades are not the fastest warming period of the series nor the slowest, rather, with the longer-term perspective they appear very ordinary.

So, according to data from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN), from this file hosted by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), there has been no net Arctic warming since 1938, the Arctic did warm quite abruptly over the two decades prior to that, has subsequently cooled and (nearly) recovered to what it was before being so rudely interrupted.

Beyond all doubt atmospheric carbon dioxide content has increased over the period, mainly from about the time the Arctic shifted to cooling mode for a spell. That trace gas increase has had no apparent effect on the Arctic’s post-LIA warming.

Since the rate of warming is unchanged and the net Arctic temperature has not increased in almost 7 decades it is very difficult to see what all the hysteria is about.