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Adverse impacts of warming have been exaggerated

by William Yeatman on May 11, 2004

in Science

On May 3, the Cooler Heads Coalition hosted a Capitol Hill briefing entitled “The Impacts of Global Warming: Why the Alarmist View is Wrong.” The event allowed four leading experts to discuss the specific scientific research that has been done in their four particular fields: severe weather events, rising sea levels, tropical diseases, and mass species extinctions.

Dr. Madhav L. Khandekar, who recently retired from Environment Canada after a 25-year career as a research scientist, and who recently edited a special issue of the international journal Natural Hazards on extreme weather events, presented his views concerning the lack of connection between severe weather events and global warming. Khandekar specifically examined heat trends from Canada, thunderstorms and tornadoes in North America, and monsoons in Asia. He concluded that there has not been an increase in severe weather events and that the likelihood of increased incidences of extreme weather events in the next ten to twenty-five years remains very small at this time.

Professor Nils-Axel Morner, head of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics Department at Stockholm University and past president of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, delivered an amusing and enthusiastic presentation examining sea level change. He pointed out that what has been predicted by computer models is not backed up by empirical evidence. Satellite measures, for instance, show no change in sea level over the past decade, which has led him to write in a peer-reviewed journal, “This implies that there is no fear of any massive future flooding as claimed in most global warming scenarios.” Much of the supposed rise, it seems, has actually been a shifting of the amount of water from one area of the globe to another.

Nor is Professor Morner worried about island nations drowning. He and his team did an exhaustive investigation of the claim made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean are at risk from sea level rise accelerated by global warming. He found considerable evidence that the sea level in the islands has fallen over the past 30 years, and that the islands and their people survived much higher sea levels in the past.

Next, Paul Reiter, a professor at the Institut Pasteur in Paris who specializes in the spread of vector-borne diseases, demolished the common claim that warmer temperatures play an important role in the spread of malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases. Reiter gave a brief historical excursus of the prevalence of malaria (or ague, as it was called in earlier centuries) in England during the Elizabethan Age, in Washington, D. C., and other northern climates during the Little Ice Age. Reiter remarked that the largest outbreak of malaria in the twentieth century occurred not in the tropics but in the Soviet Union in 1923-25, when there were more than 16 million cases and 600,000 fatalities. This figure includes 30,000 deaths in Archangel, which is above the Arctic Circle.

Reiter explained that malaria and other “tropical” diseases have more to do with living conditions than temperature. He cited his study that analyzed the Texas-Mexico border, where dengue fever was prevalent in Mexico and rare in Texas despite the similar environmental conditions. The only difference was living conditions. He also emphasized that many of the “experts” (such as physician Paul Epstein, who is not a medical researcher) expressing concern over global warming and tropical diseases are newcomers to the field and have not bothered to master the literature. Prof. Reiter concluded that climate is rarely relevant to the re-emergence of vector-borne diseases.

Patrick Michaels, professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, examined the claim that global warming threatens mass extinction of species. Michaels analyzed recent scientific articles that have been claimed as evidence that rising temperatures are reducing habitats for butterflies, penguins, polar bears, and toads. In each case, he showed that either temperatures were not rising in the specific habitats or habitat for the specific species had actually expanded. Michaels concluded that research has demonstrated that species range is affected by rising temperatures, but not in a way that helps the alarmist case.

The presenters on the panel were generally scathing about the quality of the IPCCs assessment reports in their fields of expertise. For instance, Prof. Reiter revealed that, the nine lead authors of the chapter discussing vector-borne diseases in the Second Assessment Report had published a total of six papers on the subject. The three leading critics of the chapter, including Prof. Reiter, had published over 550 scholarly papers. Prof. Morner has written in a peer-reviewed journal article that the IPCC chapter on sea-level rise represents “a low and unacceptable standard. It should be totally rewritten by a totally new group of authors chosen among the group of true sea-level specialists.”

Romney unveils climate protection plan for Massachusetts

by William Yeatman on May 11, 2004

in Politics

Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney unveiled his new climate protection plan on May 6. The plan calls for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions within the state of Massachusetts to 1990 levels by 2010 and by an additional 10 percent by 2020. Containing 72 specific suggestions, the plan is supposed to reduce pollution, cut energy demands, and nurture employment growth for the state.

Romney commented, “Economic success and environmental protection go hand in hand. The steps we are taking today will ensure a cleaner environment and a brighter future for generations to come.” He also maintained that the plan is one of the nation’s strongest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and said it exhibited a strong dedication to implementing the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers global warming plan from August 2001 (which, by the way, is clearly unconstitutional: see Article 1, Section 10).

The proposals range from encouraging the construction of “green” schools and buildings to developing a trading market for emissions within Massachusetts. Additionally, the state will implement a greenhouse gas inventory in order to track greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite launching the plan, Romney, a Republican, said that he remained personally agnostic about global warming, which led to attacks from environmental groups for deviating from the party line (Boston Globe, May 7).

In neighboring Connecticut, the General Assembly has passed a climate bill discussed in the March 31 issue. The bill would require greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced by using Kyoto-like measures. Just as in Romneys new plan, the Connecticut bill would reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 and 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. The bill is currently awaiting the Governors signature for approval (Associated Press, May 5).

Will global warming bring on the new Ice Age?

by William Yeatman on May 9, 2004

in Science

The forthcoming Hollywood movie, The Day After Tomorrow stars Dennis Quaid as an earnest climatologist trying to save the world from catastrophic global coolingbrought on by burning fossil fuels. The special effects are said to be spectacular, but the film is no more realistic than Planet of the Apes.

One of the movies big dramatic elements is that the meltwater from globally warmed polar ice caps has overwhelmed the Gulf Stream, so London and New York are turning into ice cubes.

The last time such a thing happened was 12,800 years ago, when the last Ice Age ended and we had an extra trillion tons of ice to melt. The Laurentide Ice Sheet then covered all of Canada, and the U.S. into Ohio. Similar ice sheets covered much of northern Europe and Asia. There was so much water tied up in ice that the ocean levels dropped 300 feet. Stone Age hunters walked to America across the Bering Sea with dry feet.

Has anybody noticed an ice sheet a mile thick over Chicago recently?  Where did Hollywood get the extra trillion tons of ice to shoot this movie?

The other problem for Mr. Quaids credibility is that the Gulf Stream isnt what keeps Britain warm. Its the Rocky Mountains.

The textbooks say the Gulf Stream is what keeps Britain from being sub-Arctic, but theyre wrong. Theyre based on nothing more substantial than a statement by a U.S. Navy lieutenant, Matthew Maury in1856.

One of the benign offices of the Gulf Stream is to convey heat from the Gulf of Mexico, where otherwise it would become excessive, and to disperse it in regions beyond the Atlantic for the amelioration of the climates of the British Isles and of all Western Europe, wrote Maury.

He wasnt wrong. He just wasnt very right.

The Gulf Stream does carry heat from the tropics to the shores of Britainin fact, 27,000 times as much heat as UKs powerplants generate. The warm current helps keep London 25 to 35 degrees F warmer than Newfoundland, which is at the same latitude.

However, new climate research shows that only about 10 percent of Britains winter warming comes from the Gulf Stream. Half of the rest comes from the Atlantic Ocean itself, which holds heat longer than the land.

The rest of the warming for Britain is delivered by west-to-east winds from the Americas Rocky Mountains.

Dr. Richard Seager, of Columbia Universitys Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, says, Belief in the benign role of the Gulf Stream is so widespread that it has become folklore.  But Seager and his research team used weather data from the past 50 yearsand a powerful computer model to describe how heat is shifted around the globe. They found the key to Britains climate was the warm wind from southern North America. The American wind is forced into a giant meander as it flows southeast around the Rocky Mountains.

This vast kink in the atmosphere circulation helps to explain the winter temperature contrast across the North Atlantic, says Seager. Winds, going to eastern North America, flow north around the Rockies and carry cold air to New York. The southern air flow moves over the American southwest and on to Europe. When the scientists flattened the U.S. topography by removing the Rockies from their computer models, British winter temperatures fell radicallyand the summer temperatures became suffocatingly hot.

The other big problem for the Quaid movie is that even major, abrupt climate change isnt very dramatic by Hollywood standards.

Icelanders colonized their island about 850 AD, and lived through the Medieval Warming (9001300 AD), which had the highest temperatures the earth has seen in 5,000 years. Then they suffered through the chillingly colder winters of the Little Ice Age (13001850 AD) with their winds and storms coming straight from the Polar Ice Cap.

As of 1917, after 1500 years of constant major climate changes, the Icelanders argued they hadnt seen any! They thought theyd just had periodic bad weather. But theres so much bad weather in the good (warmer) phases of the climate cycle that it takes a century of weather data to reliably spot a bad trend. The Icelanders didnt have thermometersor movies.

DENNIS T. AVERY is a senior fellow for Hudson Institute in Indianapolis and the Director for Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org).  He was formerly a senior analyst for the U.S. Department of State. 

Readers may write him at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421

New climate study finds ‘global warming’ by subtracting cooling that wasn’t there

by William Yeatman on May 4, 2004

in Science

For Additional Information:
Dr. Roy Spencer, (256) 961-7960
Dr. John Christy, (256) 961-7763
Phillip Gentry, (256) 824-6420

HUNTSVILLE, AL (May 5, 2004) — A new study of global temperature data reports this week the discovery that significant global warming can be found by subtracting from the temperature record more cooling than was actually there.

“You can’t subtract more signal than is there, but that’s what they’ve done,” said Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). “They’ve subtracted more than is actually there.”

The study in question, by Fu et al., is published this week in Nature. The authors claim to find significant atmospheric warming over the past 25 years when cooling that has taken place in the stratosphere during that time is removed from the tropospheric temperature data gathered by instruments aboard NOAA satellites.

The problem, says Spencer, is that the study uses a negative “weighting” function that removes more stratospheric cooling than actually appears in the data, thus creating a spurious warming signal.

“Simply put, this method over corrects for stratospheric cooling,” said Dr. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at UAH and director of the ESSC. “We tried this same technique in the early 1990s but it didn’t work.  Instead, Roy developed a method for accurately removing stratospheric temperatures from the data and we published that in 1992.”

Spencer and Christy were the first to use data from microwave sounding units aboard NOAA satellites to track global temperature trends. Over the past 13 years they have made several corrections to their dataset as different problems have been identified.

The satellite sensors, which have been in service since late November 1978, show a long-term lower atmosphere global warming trend of about 0.08 C (0.14 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade in the past 25 years. This trend has been corroborated by U.S., British and Russian studies comparing the satellite data to temperature data gathered by weather balloons.

— 30 —

New book, ‘Adapt or Die,’ launched in DC

by William Yeatman on May 3, 2004

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics, Science

Jami

The Marshall Institute put on an event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC today to announce the new book, Adapt Or Die: The science, politics and economics of climate change.

Adapt or Die is a project of the International Policy Network, edited by IPN’s Kendra Okonski. At the event today, Okonski introduced several contributors to the book, who each gave remarks on pressing issues in climate change.

Professor Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institut in Paris spoke about the history of malaria. Reiter pointed out that malaria was present during the Little Ice Age, at longitudes ranging all the way up to the Arctic Circle. This historical perspective severely undercuts the manic arguments insisting that malaria is a tropical disease poised to explode with any semi-significant climate warming.

Professor Nils-Axel Morner of Stockholm University discussed his research on sea level in the Maldives which contradicts dire predictions of sea-level rise in the the next century. Morners humorous remarks emphasized the need for scientists to not go too far astray from their respective specialties lest their research come off more like a summer blockbuster than a serious scientific effort.

Barun Mitra of the Liberty Institute in New Delhi, India talked about the effect proposed global warming policies could have in forcing “energy poverty” on the worlds poor, leaving them far worse off than under any theorized climate warming where they could afford amenities such as air conditioning

Rounding out the program were IPNs Julian Morris and Indur Goklany, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Simon discussed the Kyoto Protocols impact on trade and Goklany focused on the wisdom of mitigation versus adaptation as a strategy for dealing with global warming.

Okonski emphasized that the book does not take any one side on the scientific debate concerning anthropogenic global warming. Adapt or Die is available from Amazon UK and from IPN.

Impacts of Global Warming: Why the Alarmist View is Wrong

by William Yeatman on May 2, 2004

in Politics, Science

The Cooler Heads Coalition

invites you to a

Congressional and Media Briefing on

The Impacts of Global Warming
Why the Alarmist View is Wrong

A Scientific Appraisal of Tropical Diseases, Sea Level Rise,
Storms and Severe Weather Events, and Species Extinction
                                           
with

Dr. Paul Reiter, Pasteur Institut, Paris
Prof. Nils-Axel Morner, Stockholm University
Dr. Madhav L. Khandekar, Environment Canada (ret.)
Prof. Patrick Michaels, U. Va. & Cato Institute
                                         

Monday, May 3rd
10 AM-1:30 PM
1334, Longworth House Office Building

Refreshments and lunch will be provided.

Reservations are required.
Please RSVP by e-mail to mebell@cei.org
or by calling Myron Ebell at CEI at (202) 331-2256.

NGOs demand closure of World Bank climate change fund

by William Yeatman on April 27, 2004

in Politics

A press release issued by NGO Carbon Trade Watch on April 19 called for the closure of one of the first funds set up to help developing countries cope with the costs of fighting global warming.  The release read, More than 50 environmental and social justice NGOs and other groups have sent a letter of protest to the World Bank calling for the closure of its new emissions trading fund, The Prototype Carbon Fund.

 In the year of the World Banks 60th anniversary and in the run-up to intense protests in Washington, D.C. at their annual meeting this month, the groups state that the Banks new fund is destructive greenwash and has in fact created extra problems for communities and the environment.  The fund was set up in 1999 to facilitate the new trade in greenhouse gases created under the Kyoto Protocol.  The groups state that so far the fund has exacerbated existing human rights violations and furthered environmental destruction.


One of the funds model projects is located in Brazil and involves the expansion of monoculture eucalyptus plantations owned by the corporation, Plantar.  The plantations were originally established by forcibly evicting geraiszeiros peoples from the land and since then the plantations owners have been accused of creating slave-like conditions.  Furthermore, the plantations have heavily polluted surrounding water sources, thus devastating the livelihoods of local farmers and fisher-folk.

The World Bank will fund the expansion of these plantations in order to generate carbon credits for the international trade in greenhouse gases.  However, on top of the impacts upon the local environment and peoples, there is no guarantee that the project will actually have a permanent positive effect on the climate. 

 Marcelo Calazans from local Brazilian NGO, FASE-ES, states, This and many other projects have terrible negative impacts on local people and environments and it is still unclear if there is any real benefits for the climate.  We believe that the Prototype Carbon Fund should cease operations and close down immediately.

IPCC faces criticism for bad economics in UK House of Lords

by William Yeatman on April 27, 2004

in Politics

Lord Lawson, a former British Chancellor of the Exchequer, took the opportunity of an April 21 debate in the United Kingdoms House of Lords to accuse the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of operating an environmentalist closed shop that is unsullied by any acquaintance with economics, statistics or, indeed, economic history.  The debate was initiated by Lord Taverne, a former minister in previous Labour governments, who asked the government whether they were satisfied by the economic and statistical work of the IPCC.   

Lawson said that Taverne had put his finger on what is potentially a major scandal.  The basis for this assessment is the criticism made by Ian Castles and David Henderson of the economic assumptions used by the IPCC (see lead story).  This view is upheld by a new report from the International Policy Network, which assesses the way in which the IPCC predicts future climate change. 

 According to the IPN report, the IPCC appears to have exaggerated its estimates of temperature increases by using highly implausible scenarios of future growth in emissions of greenhouse gases.  It has done so by underestimating technological advancement and greatly overestimating gains in economic growth.  In order to gain credibility, the report argues that the IPCC should rely more heavily on the work of economic historians and statisticians.  (International Policy Network, Apr. 23).

 

Day After Tomorrow will never come

by William Yeatman on April 27, 2004

in Science, Students

Following on from the comments by MITs Carl Wunsch that the Gulf Stream is safe as long as the wind blows and the Earth turns, several other scientists have used the pages of Science magazine (Apr. 16) to pour scorn on the conceit behind the forthcoming movie, The Day After Tomorrow.  The movie is predicated on the idea that unchecked global warming will cause an abrupt climate shift that will cause a new ice age in the United States.

 

Canadian scientists Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria and Claude Hillaire-Marcel of the Universit de Quebec Montreal tackled the subject in a Perspectives article entitled, Global Warming and the Next Ice Age.  They pointed out that the view of global warming causing an ice age prevails in the popular press despite a relatively solid understanding of glacial inception and growth.

 

The scientists review of the literature concluded that, It is certainly true that if the AMO [Atlantic Meriodonal Oscillation] were to become inactive, substantial short-term cooling would result in western Europe, especially during the winter.  However, it is important to emphasize that not a single coupled model assessed by the 2001 IPCC Working Group I on Climate Change Science (4) predicted a collapse in the AMO during the 21st century.  Even in those models where the AMO was found to weaken during the 21st century, there would still be warming over Europe due to the radiative forcing associated with increased levels of greenhouse gases.

 

Pointing out that models that do show AMO collapse are not flux-adjusted like newer models, they conclude, Even the recent observations of freshening in the North Atlantic (a reduction of salinity due to the addition of freshwater) appear to be consistent with the projections of perhaps the most sophisticated nonflux adjusted model.  Ironically, this model suggests that such freshening is associated with an increased AMO (16).  This same model proposes that it is only Labrador Sea Water formation that is susceptible to collapse in response to global warming.

 

In light of the paleoclimate record and our understanding of the contemporary climate system, it is safe to say that global warming will not lead to the onset of a new ice age.  These same records suggest that it is highly unlikely that global warming will lead to a widespread collapse of the AMOdespite the appealing possibility raised in two recent studiesalthough it is possible that deep convection in the Labrador Sea will cease.  Such an event would have much more minor consequences on the climate downstream over Europe.

 

In the same issue, pioneering oceanographer Wallace Broecker dismisses the recent report rejected by the Pentagon that is predicated on a similar scenario.  He comments in his letter, Exaggerated scenarios serve only to intensify the existing polarization over global warming.

Poor people dont need to fly

by William Yeatman on April 27, 2004

in Politics

In a peculiar echo of the Duke of Wellingtons famous remark that the railways were a bad idea because they let the poor move around the country, Guardian columnist Jackie Ashley suggested on April 15 that something had to be done about poor and middle class Britons flying too much. 

 

She wrote, And yes, it would meancharging the real environmental cost of cheap air travel, either levied on airports or aviation fuel, or both.  We should recognise that this reduces human happiness for the millions who benefit from it.  As with the congestion charge, we should accept that this would hit some poorer people’s mobility, stealing a recent freedom away from them.  But we should remember that the boom in air travel is mainly fuelled by middle-class people flying more frequently.

 

The UKs Friends of the Earth has taken up the challenge, pointing out that the poor flying abroad for holidays is not necessary.  Richard Dyer told the BBC (Apr. 27), The vast majority of flights are discretionary, for leisure.   These are not essential.

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