William Yeatman

No Change in Arctic Sea Ice; No Change in Arctic Sea Ice; Enhanced Greenhouse Effect Needed

by William Yeatman on April 3, 2001

in Science

No Change in Arctic Sea Ice

One of the mainstays of the global warming apocalyptics has been that the polar ice caps are melting and the seas are rising. It has even been claimed that the Arctic regions serve as an early warning system that global warming is on its way due to its supposed greater sensitivity to temperature change. In 1999, a paper published in the Geophysical Research Letters by Rothrock et al. suggested that Arctic ice was thinner in the 1990s than it was from 1958 to 1979.

A new study in the March 15 issue of GRL takes a closer look at the evidence. The 1999 study used data collected from submarine cruises from 1993, 96, and 97 and compared it to similar data from 1958 to 1979. The new study by Peter Winsor, with the Department of Oceanography, Earth Science Centre, at Gteborg University in Sweden, “carefully analyzed” the Rothrock results “using the most comprehensive data set presently available to the research community.”

The study concludes, “Draft data from the North Pole, and the Beaufort Sea, and transects between the two areas over a 7-year period from 1991 to 1997 show no evidence of a thinning ice cover.” Winsor goes on to show that by “Combining the mean drafts derived [from another study] from 1986 to 1990 with those from the present study, I conclude that the thickness of sea ice cover has remained on a near-constant level at the North Pole during the 12-year period from 1986 to 1997.”

If the Arctic is an early warning system of global warming as environmentalists claim, then judging by these results greenhouse gas emissions are not having any effect.

No Change in Climate

A new study in the March 29 issue of Nature has cast doubts on claims by environmentalists that the current climate is unprecedented. Indeed, if the results of the study are true, todays climate is typical of past interglacial warm periods.

The study analyzed tree ring data from partially fossilized remains of the conifer Fitzroya cupressoides or Alerce, the worlds second longest living tree. The trees, which can live to be as old as 3,600 years, died about 50,000 years ago. This gives scientists an opportunity to study a long period of the ancient climate system.

“The fine scale of the record reveals climate fluctuations that closely resemble those we are experiencing now, including the 25-year spell of El Nio oscillations,” noted a news story accompanying the study. According to the researchers, “Our study suggests that comparable cycles in tree growth occurred between interstadials of the last glaciation and today, and hence that similar factors have affected the radial growth of Fitzroya since the Late Pleistocene,” and that, “The forcing mechanisms of climate during the interstadials have not changed dramatically.”

Tropical Disease Cannot be Linked to Global Warming

The National Research Council announced a new study on April 2 looking at the impacts of climate change on human health. They found that, “It is not yet possible to determine whether global warming will actually cause diseases to spread,” according to a press release announcing the study. The diseases looked at include mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, malaria and yellow fever, influenza, intestinal disorders, and so on.

“Basic public health protections such as adequate housing and sanitation, as well as the availability of vaccines and drugs, can limit the geographic distribution of diseases regardless of climate,” said the release. “One example of this is along the border between the United States and Mexico, where dengue fever outbreaks are common just south of the Rio Grande in Mexico, but are rarely seen in neighboring regions just north of the river in the United States, mainly because of differences in socio-economic conditions.”

The printed study, Under the Weather: Climate, Ecosystems, and Infectious Disease, wont be released until this summer, but can be read online at http://nationalacademies.org/topnews.

Enhanced Greenhouse Effect Needed

A new study in Astrophysics and Space Science (275: 2001) by internationally renowned scientists Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe presents a new theory of climatic change. According to them, the earths natural state is the extreme coldness of the ice ages, and the earth would remain in such a state forever if not for the periodic collision with large comets.

One-kilometer size comets have a probability of hitting the earth about once every 100,000 years, which coincides with the average periodicity of ice ages. When one of these comets hits the earths oceans, it ejects enough water vapor into the atmosphere to “jerk the earth almost discontinuously out of a long drawn-out ice-age into the beginning of an interglacial.” Afterwards, the earth gradually returns to its normal frozen state.

What are the implications for global warming? According to Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, “We must look to a sustained greenhouse effect to maintain the present advantageous world climate.” They warn, “The renewal of ice-age conditions would render a large fraction of the worlds major food-growing areas inoperable, and so would inevitably lead to the extinction of most of the present human population.” Indeed, “Without some artificial means of giving positive feedback to the climate, …an eventual drift into ice-age conditions appears inevitable,” they said.

They have harsh words for those who support greenhouse gas regulations. “Manifestly, we need all the greenhouse we can get,” they said. “Those who have engaged in uncritical scaremongering over an enhanced greenhouse effect raising the Earths temperature by a degree or two should be seen as both misguided and dangerous.” The current danger “is of a drift back into an ice-age, not away from an ice-age.” For a longer review of the study see www.co2science.org.

Abraham Speaks on Energy Crisis

by William Yeatman on March 20, 2001

in Small business

Energy Secretary Spence Abraham began to lay out the administrations energy policies in a major speech at the U. S. Chamber of Commerces National Energy Summit on March 19 in Washington, D. C. He left no doubt that the Bush Administration intends to keep its campaign promises to push policies that will promote more affordable and abundant energy supplies for American consumers.

Abraham characterized the Clinton-Gore Administrations energy policy as, “You cant find it, you cant transport it, and even if you get it, we dont want you to use it. Through neglect or complacency or ideology, this approach has led us to the crisis we face today.”

He addressed three key points that the administrations policies must address:

  • “First, demand for energy is rising across the board, but particularly for natural gas and electricity;

  • “Second, supplies are being limited by a regulatory structure that, in many respects, has failed to keep pace with advances in technology and an uncertain political environment that often discourages investment in desperately needed facilities;

  • “And third, our energy infrastructure that network of the generators, transmission lines, refineries and pipelines that convert raw resources into usable fuel is woefully antiquated and inadequate to meet our future needs.”

Americas demand for energy will continue to increase, according to Abraham. He quoted forecasts from DOEs Energy Information Administration that demand for oil will increase by 33 percent over the next 20 years, for natural gas by 62 percent, and for electricity by 45 percent.

It is difficult to meet these demands, however, when capacity is lacking. “Since 1980,” said Abraham, “the number of American refineries has been cut in half. There hasnt been a new refinery built in the United States in over 25 years.” Much of the problem is due to government interference. “New regulatory interpretations limit the ability of existing refineries to expand capacity,” he said. “Add to that regulations that require the production of more than 15 different types of gasoline and you have a refining industry strained to capacity, leaving us dangerously vulnerable to regional supply disruptions and price spikes.”

To meet Americas rising demand for electricity over the next 20 years, said Abraham, the U.S. will have construct 1,300 new power plants or 65 per year. And he added that if history is a guide, then this may be too conservative an estimate. Abraham reiterated coals importance to electricity generation and pledged that, “The administration will not regulate coal out of existence, and we will not support measures that will threaten electricity supplies and significantly raise electricity prices.”

Finally, Abraham noted the importance of a reliable and affordable supply of energy. “This nations last three recessions have all been tied to rising energy prices and there is strong evidence that the latest crisis is already having a negative effect.”

Californias power crisis is causing layoffs and companies to move to states with reliable energy supplies. Abraham noted that “Intels CEO Craig Barrett announced that the worlds leading chipmaker wont be expanding in California: As long as California is a Third World country, Barrett said, we wont build $2 billion manufacturing plants here.” Other regions in the country are also in danger of experiencing California-style crises, Abraham warned.

Secretary Abraham held a press conference at the U. S. Chamber immediately after his speech. Over 60 reporters attended, but there was not a single question about the obvious conflict between the administrations energy policies and the Kyoto Protocol.

Bush Decides Against Regulating CO2; Reactions to the Presidents Decision

by William Yeatman on March 20, 2001

in Politics

Bush Decides Against Regulating CO2

President George W. Bush announced on March 13 that his administration would not seek congressional approval to regulate carbon dioxide emissions produced by electric utilities. In a letter to Senators Hagel, Craig, Helms, and Roberts, Bush said that “important new information” from an Energy Information Administration study “concluded that including caps on carbon dioxide emissions as part of a multiple emissions strategy would lead tosignificantly higher electricity prices”

“At a time when California has already experienced energy shortages, and other Western states are worried about price and availability of energy this summer, we must be very careful not to take actions that could harm consumers,” Bush continued in the letter. “This is especially true given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change and the lack of commercially available technologies for removing and storing carbon dioxide.”

The president also made it clear that he does support changes to the Clean Air Act that would allow regulation using the “multi-pollutant strategy” for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury. Such an approach is part of a “comprehensive and balanced national energy policy that takes into account the importance of improving air quality.”

Bush stated at the beginning of his letter to the four Senators that, “As you know, I oppose the Kyoto Protocol.” And he concluded, “I look forward to working with you and others to address global climate change issues in the context of a national energy policy that protects our environment, consumers, and economy.”

The beginning of the controversy was reported in the March 7 issue of the Cooler Heads Newsletter. Members of the Cooler Heads Coalition played significant roles in calling attention to the issue and in convincing the Bush-Cheney Administration to decide against regulating carbon dioxide emissions. A number of Senators and Representatives, in addition to the four listed above, also raised their concerns. They included Senators Inhofe, Nickles, and Voinovich and Representatives DeLay, Barton, Knollenberg, Emerson, and John Peterson.

Reactions to the Presidents Decision

President Bushs decision not to regulate CO2 emissions prompted immediate reactions from supporters of the Kyoto Protocol around the world. Michael Oppenheimer of Environmental Defense accused Bush of rejecting “the judgment of the worlds leading climate scientists.”

Greenpeace was harsher. “When you put two oil men in the White House, I guess this is what you have to expect,” said Greenpeace Climate Policy Director Bill Hare. “Apparently Mrs. Whitmans environmentally responsible position has not carried the day, and we can expect the Neanderthal, head-in-the-sand rhetoric of Bush to prevail in this administration.” Hare also accused Bush of “rejecting the worldwide scientific consensus on global warming” and “listening to listening to extreme Flat Earth minority viewpoints on the science.”

Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope accused President Bush of “bowing to big business instead of honoring his commitment to our children.” And from the Senate, Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) showed his ignorance by claiming the Bushs decision would lead to dirtier air. “In this case, turnabout is foul play and will mean foul air,” he said at a press conference decrying Bushs decision.

On the other hand, a number of Cooler Heads Coalition members sent out press releases praising President Bushs decision. These included Consumer Alert, Citizens for a Sound Economy, the National Center for Public Policy Research, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Although the majority of newspapers across the country criticized Bushs decision, several applauded it. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution (March 15, 2001) said, “Refusing to call for reductions in CO2 emissions is the most sensible step the president could make.”

It also said, “Last we heard, one needs to establish that there is a problem before implementing a solution. When this nation spends billions of dollars tackling an unnecessary task in the name of environmental protection, it diverts time, energy, money and attention from environmental issues where we truly could make a difference. Environmental groups lose credibility when they cry wolf and denounce the president, who insists environmental policy be based on facts and scientific research.”

The Orange County Register also chimed in quickly (March 16): “The Bush administration made a correct decisionand in some ways a brave onewhen it decided not to ask for emissions reductions of carbon dioxide from American power plants. It represented a willingness to listen to valid concerns about the cost of regulation, to look at the state of science on global warming rather than responding to arguments based on emotional convictions, and to make a common-sense decision that reflects the interests of the vast majority of American consumers rather than an insulated policy elite.Perhaps most unusually for a group of politicians, Mr. Bush and his advisers were willing to say forthrightly that a previous position had been a mistake and to take the heat for admitting it was a mistake.”

Investors Business Daily on March 19 noted the common sense behind Bushs decision. “[T]he evidence on CO2s contribution to global warming is far from clear. Every creature on the earth emits CO2 when they exhale – and theyve been doing so since the first pollywogs climbed out on land. Its also far from clear that some global warming wouldnt benefit mankind. Longer crop seasons could help underdeveloped countries feed their citizens. Warmer climes could reduce stress and mental illness. More arable land could be freed up. Less fossil fuel would be used for heat, meaning less pollution.”

The March 21 Kansas City Star weighed costs and benefits: “Though nobody knows with certainty whether global warming is real or whether its really a threat if it is, what is known with certainty is that raising the regulatory bar for carbon dioxide will raise the price of electric power at a time when America can least afford it.”

Finally, criticism from abroad has been heavy, especially from Europe. The quote that most clearly reveals the European agenda at the Kyoto negotiations came from Margot Wallstrom, the European Unions commissioner for the environment. “This is not a simple environmental issue where you can say it is an issue where the scientists are not unanimous. This is about international relations, this is about economy, about trying to create a level playing field for big businesses throughout the world. You have to understand what is at stake and that is why it is serious.”

Satellites Spot Greenhouse Effect; Climate Data Still Inadequate

by William Yeatman on March 20, 2001

in Science

Satellites Spot Greenhouse Effect

In a major non-news story that received major press and broadcast coverage, a paper by a team of scientists at Imperial College, London published in the March 15, 2001 issue of Nature finds data from satellites provides the first “direct observational evidence” that the greenhouse effect is intensifying as a result of manmade greenhouse gas emissions.

“However,” according to a CNN story, “the study did not tackle whether Earths surface temperature is actually increasing. In fact, whether this greenhouse effect will lead to global warming or global cooling is unclear, the study scientists said.”

Climate Data Still Inadequate

If the claims about widespread scientific certainty about global warming are true, then why does Nature bemoan the poor quality of climate data? Nature argues in a March 15 article that, “There is also a small chance that none of the IPCCs scenarios will come close to reality.” Why? Because, “The accuracy of any model depends significantly on the quality of the underlying raw data. The problem is, the quality is patchy.”

The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) was created in 1992 to solve this problem. But there are serious flaws in the system, according to Nature. With only 1,000 stations in operation, coverage is sparse. It is mostly confined to rich industrialized countries, while Africa, South America and Asia, as well as remote polar regions in Russia and Canada go largely unmeasured. “Through misreporting, instrumental drifts and biases, unreliable communication infrastructures or political unrest, about half the worlds climate data potential is lost or corrupted each month,” says Nature. Part of the problem is the high cost of the program. A single GCOS station costs up to $500,000 per year to operate.

Moreover, “Sea-based climate observation and ocean monitoring, which is likely to add significantly to our knowledge of what drives atmospheric processes, is only just beginning.”

Etc.

The efforts of the Cooler Heads Coalition and its member groups to convince the Bush Administration to oppose regulating CO2 emissions have been recognized by the environmental movement. The Clean Air Trust on March 15 awarded its “Villain of the Month” award to Cooler Heads Coalition chairman Myron Ebell. The Trusts press release (www.cleanairtrust.org) cited the “furious lobbying charge” of the Cooler Heads Coalition and described it as “a motley array of radical anti-clean air groups, mostly funded by business, with ties to the extreme right wing of the Republican party.”

Ebell accepted the award in a letter (www.cei.org) to the Clean Air Trust, but questioned whether the Trust really believed that carbon dioxide was a pollutant since it isnt included on the list of air pollutants on its web site. Past winners of the Villain of the Month award include Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, Sen. George Voinovich, American Electric Power, Exxon Mobil, and Cinergy.

Consumer Group Relieved at Announcement on CO2

by William Yeatman on March 13, 2001

in Blog

Bush Administration decides to allow consumers to keep breathing, after all

WASHINGTON, DC (March 14, 2001) Consumer Alert breathed a deep sigh of relief today at the announcement from the Bush Administration that it would not seek to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. “On behalf of the 280 million American consumers who exhale carbon dioxide on a daily basis, Consumer Alert thanks George W. Bush and his administration for its position on this issue,” said policy analyst James Plummer.

CA Executive Director Frances Smith also gave plaudits to the move. “A carbon regulation scheme would spell doom for consumers,” said Smith, explaining that even had the administration arbitrarily decided to regulate CO2 emissions solely from machines instead of mammals, consumers could have found themselves paying through the nose, even if they werent blue in the face. “The only effective ways to cut CO2 emissions, given existing technology, are massive price hikes or rationing accomplished through California-style rolling blackouts.”

The seeds of the will-he-wont-he controversy on President Bushs CO2 position were planted during the campaign when written campaign documents indicated the Bush team regarded CO2 as a “pollutant.” Meanwhile, Bush himself, campaigning on the stump, cast doubt on the “science” behind catastrophic global warming theory and the international CO2 regulation regime called the Kyoto Protocol.

“This confusion has left those of us fighting for consumers rights to reasonably-priced, accessible energy quite literally waiting to exhale,” said Plummer. “Kyotophile politicians in Great Britain, with the highest gasoline prices in the known world, are on the edge of raising them even more, under the guise of a climate tax. American citizens dont want the skyrocketing gas prices paid by British subjects and other Europeans.”

Consumer Alert is a non-profit, nonpartisan consumer group based in Washington, DC dedicated to informing the public about the consumer benefits of competitive enterprise and to promoting sound economic, scientific, and risk data in public policy decisions. Consumer Alert also founded the National Consumer Coalition, a coalition of more than two dozen groups who understand and advocate for the benefits a market economy brings to consumers. The NCC subgroup Cooler Heads Coalition (www.globalwarming.org), follows issues surrounding the science, economics and politics of global warming.

IPCC: CO2 Reductions Will Be Painless

by William Yeatman on March 6, 2001

in Blog

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released the Summary for Policymakers of the Working Group III report on mitigation, which has yet to be released. The Summary is the perfect sunny-faced companion to gloomy summaries for Working Groups I and II.

The IPCC claimed in the earlier summaries that global warming will lead to rampant climatic disasters: hurricanes, floods, droughts, rising sea levels, higher crime levels, disease, and so on. Then it says in the WG III Summary that this can be prevented painlessly.

The Summary claims that all kinds of new technologies are coming on line that will make it possible to reduce energy emissions that would supposedly wreak havoc on the climate. “Advances are taking place in a wide range of technologies at different stages of development, e.g., the market introduction of wind turbines, the rapid elimination of industrial by-product gases such as N2Oand perfluorocarbons from aluminum production, efficient hybrid engine cars, the advancement of fuel cell technology, and the demonstration of underground carbon dioxide storage,” according to the Summary.

Fossil fuels, says the summary, will continue to dominate the energy supply at least until 2020, but carbon intensive energy industries, such as coal and oil, would have to decline under climate change policies. Natural gas, as well as improvements in efficiency and greater use of combined cycle and/or cogeneration plants would eventually need to replace them. Also, “pre- or post-combustion carbon removal and storage” could play an important role, claims the Summary. One wonders, however, how pre-combustion carbon removal would work since it is the oxidizing of carbon, converting it to CO2, which releases the energy. Removing carbon from fuel makes it a non-fuel.

The Summary does say that the use of carbon sinks could be an important means of reducing CO2 concentrations, to the chagrin of environmental activists. Industry shouldnt take much comfort in this, however. The section on sinks is fraught with danger. “Conservation of threatened carbon pools may help to avoid emissions, if leakage can be prevented, and can only become sustainable if the socio-economic drivers for deforestation and other losses of carbon pools can be addressed,” says the Summary.

Moreover, “Conservation and sequestration result in higher carbon stocks, but can lead to higher future carbon emissions if these ecosystems are severely disturbed by either natural or direct/indirect human-induced disturbances.” In English, this means that not only is global warming a good reason to suppress energy use, but also a good reason to implement widespread land use planning to protect carbon sinks.

The Summary endorses behavior modification policies. “In the shorter term, there are opportunities to influence through social innovations individual and organization behaviors,” it says. “In the longer term such innovations, in combination with technological change, may further enhance socio-economic potential, particularly if preferences and cultural norms shift towards a lower emitting and sustainable behaviors.” This will not be easy, according to the Summary. “These innovations frequently meet with resistance, which may be addressed by encouraging greater public participation in the decision making processes.”

Bush Officials Favor Kyoto Policies; Kyoto Stays Alive in Trieste

by William Yeatman on March 6, 2001

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics

Bush Officials Favor Kyoto Policies

The wrongheaded policies of the Clinton-Gore Administration have found new and perhaps more vigorous life within the Bush Administration. Recently, senior officials have made several comments on the need to fight global warming and about Bushs support for such policies.

Treasury Secretary Paul ONeill has long been a global warming zealot. In 1998 he gave a speech to the aluminum industrys trade association in which he named what he believed to be the worlds two most pressing problems. “One is nuclear holocaust,” he said. “The second is environmental: specifically, the issue of global climate change and the potential of global warming.”

According to Techcentralstation.com (March 8, 2001), ONeill “seems to be emerging as an aggressive advocate of action on global warming.” Indeed, ONeill distributed copies of his 1998 speech at Bushs first cabinet meeting.

Recently, ONeill has come under scrutiny for not divesting himself of $90 million in share and stock options in the aluminum manufacturer, Alcoa. When asked if this presents a conflict of interest he told Meet the Press (March 4, 2001) that, “The ethics department lawyers said they thought it was OK for me to maintain these shares. You know, I cant imagine that, as treasury secretary, Im going to have decisions come before me that have anything to do with this.”

Our imagination is a little livelier, however. Once carbon dioxide is defined as a pollutant when produced by electricity generation, the next step logically will be to regulate other carbon dioxide emitters, such as autos. The most feasible way to reduce CO2 emissions from autos is to make cars lighter by replacing steel with aluminum. If ONeill insists on keeping his millions in stock options then he should keep silent about global warming.

Christine Todd Whitman, Bushs administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has picked up where Carol Browner left off. She represented the US at the G-8 summit meeting held over the last weekend in Trieste, Italy. While there she told the delegates, “Let me just start with the clear and unequivocal statement that the global climate review thats being undertaken by this administration does not represent a backing away from Kyoto” (Reuters, March 3, 2000). She also said that President Bush views global warming as, “the greatest environmental challenge that we face” and wants to “take steps to move forward.”

In an exchange with Robert Novak on Crossfire (February 26, 2001) Ms. Whitman made it clear that the Bush Administration favors the regulation of CO2.

NOVAK: Governor, tonight as we sit here, the environmental conservatives are up in arms because they have heard that President Bush in his speech to Congress tomorrow night is going to call for a multi-pollutant strategy which would put — which implies a cap on carbon dioxide. The only theory under which carbon dioxide is alleged harmful is a catastrophic global warming theory, which was, as I remember, it was Al Gore’s, not George Bush. They are really upset. Have you gotten e-mails and phone calls on this today?

WHITMAN: I haven’t gotten any today that I know of, but I’ve been at a lot of meetings today and with the National Governors. George Bush was very clear during the course of the campaign that he believed in a multi-pollutant strategy, and that includes CO2, and I have spoken to that.

He has also been very clear that the science is good on global warming. It does exist. There is a real problem that we as a world face from global warming and to the extent that introducing CO2 to the discussion is going to have an impact on global warming, that’s an important step to take.

Kyoto Stays Alive in Trieste

With the Bush Administration still reviewing the specifics of its position on Kyoto and the United States and European Union positions still miles apart, the G-8 Environment Ministers meeting in Trieste, Italy “could have sounded the death knell for the climate negotiations and the Kyoto Protocol,” according to Europe Environment (March 6, 2001).

Although what the ministers did agree to was minimal it was enough to keep the Kyoto negotiations limping along for another few months. The EU demanded that the G-8 countries agree to ratify Kyoto before 2002. Instead, the ministers agreed to ratify Kyoto by the end of 2002. Negotiations have been rescheduled to resume on July 16-27 in Bonn, Germany.

Environmentalists were encouraged by the outcome. Jennifer Morgan of the World Wildlife Fund said that the G-8 meeting was “positive in that the other G-8 countries sent the US administration a clear signal that the talks would focus on Kyoto.” Europe Environment reported that, “The Italian [Environment] Minister Willer Bordon [acting President of the G8] said on leaving the talks with Ms. Whitman that he was very optimistic, since she had confirmed that the Bush Administration recognized that greenhouse gas emissions caused global warming and was no more intransigent than the Clinton Administration.”

RIP: Global Warming Theory; Lindzen Trashes IPCC

by William Yeatman on March 6, 2001

in Science

RIP: Global Warming Theory

Three scientific studies that have recently appeared may well spell the beginning of the end of global warming theory:

1) Water Vapor Feedback

The biggest uncertainty in climate science is how feedbacks affect the climate. Global warming theory posits that a rise in atmospheric CO2 will only cause a slight warming of the atmosphere, on the order of about 1 degree centigrade. This small amount of warming, according to standard global warming theory, speeds up evaporation, increasing the amount of water vapor, the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. This positive feedback is where most of the predicted warming comes from.

A new study in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (March 2000) shows that the reverse is true. The authors find a negative water vapor feedback effect that is powerful enough to offset all other positive feedbacks. Using detailed daily observations of cloud cover from satellites in the tropics and comparing them to sea surface temperatures, the researchers found that there is an “iris effect” in which higher temperatures reduce the warming effect of clouds.

According to a NASA press release about the study, “Clouds play a critical and complicated role in regulating the temperature of the Earth. Thick, bright, watery clouds like cumulus shield the atmosphere from incoming solar radiation by reflecting much of it back into space. Thin, icy cirrus clouds are poor sunshields but very efficient insulators that trap energy rising from the Earths warmed surface. A decrease in cirrus cloud area would have a cooling effect by allowing more heat energy, or infrared radiation, to leave the planet.”

The researchers found that a one degree centigrade rise in ocean surface temperature decreased the ratio of cirrus cloud area to cumulus cloud area by 17 to 27 percent, allowing more heat to escape.

In an interview with Tech Central Station (March 5, 2001, www.techcentralstation.com), Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, the lead author, said that the climate models used in the IPCC have the cloud physics wrong. “We found that there were terrible errors about clouds in all the models, and that that will make it impossible to predict the climate sensitivity because the sensitivity of the models depends primarily on water vapor and clouds. Moreover, if clouds are wrong, theres no way you can get water vapor right. Theyre both intimately tied to each other.” Lindzen argues that due to this new finding he doesnt expect “much more than a degree warming and probably a lot less by 2100.”

2) Black Carbon

The IPCC had to explain in its 1995 Second Assessment Report why its previous predictions of global temperature change were nearly 3 times larger than observed. It concluded that emissions of sulfate aerosols from the burning of coal were offsetting the warming that should be caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Sulfate aerosols, according to this explanation, reflect incoming solar radiation back to space, cooling the planet.

Its Third Assessment Report takes the sulfate aerosol idea even further. It claims that the earth might warm even faster than previously thought. It comes to this conclusion, in part, by assuming that sulfate aerosol emissions will be eliminated by government regulation, giving carbon dioxide free reign.

Sulfate aerosols, then, are a key component of catastrophic global warming scenarios. Without them, the IPCC cannot explain why the earth is not warming according to their forecasts, nor can they reasonably claim that global warming will lead to catastrophes of biblical proportions.

A study in Nature (February 8, 2001) eliminates sulfate aerosols as an explanation to correct the models. The author, Mark Jacobson, with the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, takes a look at how black carbon aerosols affect the earths climate. Unlike other aerosols that reflect solar radiation, black carbon, or soot, absorbs solar radiation, thereby forcing atmospheric temperatures upward.

Until now the warming influence of black carbon was thought to be minor, leading researchers to ignore it. Jacobson, however, finds, “a higher positive forcing from black carbon than previously thought, suggesting that the warming effect from black carbon may nearly balance the net cooling effect of other anthropogenic aerosol constituents.”

There you have it. Black carbon offsets the cooling effect of other aerosols, meaning we are back at square one. We still dont know why the earth has failed to warm like the climate models say it should have warmed. Indeed, all of the prognostications of the IPCC and the pro-global warming, anti-energy activists are wrong if the Nature study is right.

3) Natural Cycles

The IPCCs hockey stick graph has also come under criticism in Science (February 23, 2001). The graph, a temperature record derived from tree rings dating to 1000 AD, shows that global temperatures have remained steady or decreased during the last millennium. Only the industrial age has experienced an anomalous warming, which constitutes the blade of the hockey stick.

This particular temperature record does not show the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) or the Little Ice Age (LIA), two naturally occurring events where the range of global temperature change exceeded that of the 20th century. The hockey stick relegates the MWP to a regional rather than a global phenomenon.

Wallace Broecker, at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, argues that the MWP and the LIA were indeed global phenomena and that “The post-1860 natural warming was the most recent in a series of similar warmings spaced at roughly 1500-year intervals throughout the present interglacial, the Holocene.” He reviews several scientific studies that confirm his arguments.

The claim by the IPCC that the 20th century is the warmest in the last 1000 years just doesnt hold up under scrutiny. The MWP was warmer and, according to the seminal work by Hubert H. Lamb, Climate History and the Modern World, civilization thrived under the warmer climate.

With these three studies, it may be time to bid global warming theory a warm farewell.

“Lindzen Trashes IPCC”

Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a lead author of the IPCC Third Assessment Report, delivered a scathing critique of the IPCC process at a briefing sponsored by the Cooler Heads Coalition on May 1 on Capitol Hill.

What are some of the problems with the IPCC process according to Lindzen? It uses summaries to misrepresent what scientists say; uses language that means different things to scientists and laymen; exploits public ignorance over quantitative matters; exploits what scientists can agree on while ignoring disagreements to support the global warming agenda; and exaggerates scientific accuracy and certainty and the authority of undistinguished scientists.

The “most egregious” problem with the report, said Lindzen, “is that it is presented as a consensus that involves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of scientists and none of them were asked if they agreed with anything in the report except for the one or two pages they worked on.”

Most press accounts characterize the IPCC report as a consensus of 2,000 of the worlds leading climate scientists. The emphasis isnt on getting qualified scientists, said Lindzen, but on getting representatives from 100 countries, only a handful of which do significant research. “It is no small matter,” said Lindzen, “that routine weather service functionaries from New Zealand to Tanzania are referred to as the worlds leading climate scientists. It should come as no surprise that they will be determinedly supportive of the process.”

Perhaps his most devastating critique is of the IPCCs use of statistics. Its infamous hockey stick graph, for instance, shows that global temperatures have been stable or going down in the last 1000 years and that only in the industrial age has there been an anomalous warming of the planet. But if you look at the margin of error in that graph, “You can no longer maintain that statement,” said Lindzen.

Indeed, the margins of error used in the IPCC report are much smaller than traditionally used by scientists. This means that the IPCC is publicizing data that is much less likely to be correct than scientists normally use. The IPCC is playing a statistical shell game that isnt scientifically valid.

In his own Hill briefing a week later, Robert Watson, chairman of the IPCC, admitted that Dr. Lindzen had “trashed the IPCC” at the Cooler Heads briefing.

IPCC, the Mythmaker; US Rep. Calls for Kyoto Vote; EU to Blame for Hague Failure; Ford Makes Nice with Greens

by William Yeatman on February 20, 2001

in Politics

IPCC, the Mythmaker

In its latest headline grabbing move, the UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released yet another Summary for Policymakers of an unfinished report. This summary claims to reflect the Working Group II report, Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Like the summary released earlier of Working Group Is report, it distorts the true state of climate science.

The move to release summaries that are written and approved by government bureaucrats, not scientists, before the reports themselves, guarantees that the reports will be largely ignored when they are finally released in the fall. And it ensures that the conventional wisdom about global warming will be shaped by the outlandish claims of the summaries and not the more-reasoned scientific reports.

That is the idea of course. The goal of the IPCC is not to produce a true picture of climate science, but to influence the political process. “Scientists and environmentalists hope [the report] will prod political leaders to action,” according to the New York Times (February 19, 2001). Moreover, “Mondays report warned that the United States where skepticism about warming is strong in the new administration would not escape a rise in flooding and storms that have caused billions of dollars in damage in recent years.”

Several ludicrous claims are made in the Summary, which purports to show the impacts of global warming. It argues, based on extreme warming scenarios, that every major variable affecting human well-being will worsen, and it ignores any ecological or economic benefits from a warmer climate. It claims, for instance, that there will be “increased energy demand for space cooling due to higher summer temperatures.” This statement ignores the credit side of the equation.

Global climate models predict, for example, that most warming will occur in the winter and at night and that there will be very little warming in the summer. This is what has been observed so far. This would lead to lower heating bills and only slight increases in cooling bills a net benefit that the IPCC ignores.

Indeed, the El Nio of 1997-98, which led to milder winters and hotter summers, bears this out. A study in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (September 1999) showed that there was a net benefit of $15 billion dollars, due in large part to the savings from lower heating bills.

The Summary also claims that global warming will increase exposure to vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue and yellow fever. Again, there is no evidence of a linkage between these diseases and global warming. These diseases are endemic to the northern latitudes and were wiped out by public health programs. As Dr. Paul Reiter of the Center for Disease Control has pointed out many times, these diseases flourish where there is poverty and have nothing to do with global warming.

The claims regarding flooding, droughts, heat waves, and so on are equally erroneous. The government functionaries who wrote the Summary ignore all mitigating factors and more importantly the empirical evidence. They rely almost entirely on computer model projections, which have been shown to be significantly at odds with the evidence.

US Rep. Calls for Kyoto Vote

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the House Commerce Committees Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee, recently called on President George W. Bush to submit the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate for a ratification vote. He believes that the treaty would be rejected, thereby clearing the way for the Bush Administration to propose alternatives, such as regional and bilateral agreements with other countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (CBS News, February 8, 2001).

EU to Blame for Hague Failure

According to press accounts immediately following climate negotiations last November at the Hague, Netherlands, the US was the skunk at the party. Its refusal to compromise, said the reports, led to the talks collapsing. European Union negotiators berated the US for its failure to cooperate.

As Cooler Heads (November 29, 2000) has already noted, the reality was quite different. A major player in the Hague negotiations has now confirmed our view. According to Canadas Environment Minister, David Anderson, the EU refused to compromise. According to BBC News Online (February 13, 2001), Anderson claims that, “the European Union had stalemated the talks, and was holding the world to ransom.”

The talks failed because the EU would not budge on the use of sinks and the Clean Development Mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The EU wants to force countries to make most of their reductions domestically. But as Anderson points out, “Theres absolutely no difference whether you pull a ton of carbon out of the atmosphere in Kenya, or in Canada. And it doesnt make the slightest bit of intellectual sense for Europeans to pretend otherwise.”

Ford Makes Nice with Greens

Ian McAllister, chairman and managing director of Ford Motor Company UK, has agreed to become the first Chairman of the Carbon Trust, a government-created body intended to promote reductions of carbon emissions. The Carbon Trusts work, according to Environment News Service (February 13, 2001), “is aimed at promoting low carbon research and development, and helping business invest in energy efficient, low carbon technologies and practices.”

In other news from Ford, the automaker announced on February 16 that it will donate $5 million to the National Audubon Society. The corporate grant, the largest ever received by Audubon, “will support citizen science, education and conservation programs that protect wildlife and engage children and adults in developing an understanding and appreciation of nature that lasts throughout their lifetimes.”

This grant was not announced soon enough to help Ford escape being listed by Mother Jones magazine as one of the worlds worst corporations in its January 3, 2001 MoJo Wire (It should be noted that green-leaning BP also made the list of the worlds worst corporations.)

Christy Scoffs at IPCCs Doomsday Scenario; Russias Frigid Winter

by William Yeatman on February 20, 2001

in Science

Christy Scoffs at IPCCs Doomsday Scenario

Dr. John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama at Huntsville and a lead author of the IPCCs Third Assessment Report, has publicly criticized the IPCCs media campaign to generate public alarm about global warming. “The world is in much better shape than this doomsday scenario paints,” he told the London Times (February 20, 2001). “There are 245 different results in that report, and this was the worst-case scenario. Its the one thats not going to happen. It was the extreme case of all the different things that can make the world warm.”

On the computer models that form the foundation of the IPCC report, Christy said, “You should approach climate models with a degree of awe and a sense of humor. They are incredible accomplishments of code-writing, but they are not the real world. They have many shortcomings the sort of tiny shortcomings that can make long-term predictions suspect.” Indeed, said Christy, no model accurately portrays the current climate. How then can we trust future predictions?

Christy also noted that mans impact on the earth is too small to detect. “Hurricanes are not increasing,” he said. “Tornadoes are not increasing. Storms and drought do not show any pattern of increasing or decreasing. The evidence shows we are living in a climate of natural variability. Variations of climate have always occurred, even when humans could not have had any impact!”

The specter of malaria in England from global warming is a red herring, according to Christy. “Malaria is not a warm weather disease and was endemic in Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is constrained by simple public health measures. In countries wealthy enough to support a good public health infrastructure, there is little or no malaria, such as Singapore and northern Australia.”

Russias Frigid Winter

Russia is experiencing its coldest winter in 50 years, according to official measurements. The average temperature in Siberia was 40 degrees C and fell as low as 70 degrees C (Arizona Republic, February 18, 2001). This is significant because according to greenhouse theory places such as Siberia should see the largest rise in temperatures from increases in atmospheric concentrations in greenhouse gases.

Because the coldest air masses on earth are also the driest, greenhouse gases exert a relatively larger influence on temperatures than in more humid regions, such as the tropics. Indeed, tropical temperatures should remain nearly steady.

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