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Drought Cycles and Hurricane Cycles

University of New Mexico scientist Louis Scuderi, studying tree ring data in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, has identified a 72 year drought cycle in the region according to an AP article of April 29th. The last such drought occurred in the 1950s, leading Scuderi to believe that another is imminent in the 2020s.

Although the cause of the drought cycle is still unknown, a good bet would be climactic oscillators, similar to the El Nio and La Nia effects, only operating over this longer timespan. Scientists believe that many of these oscillators may exist, effecting temperature and climate significantly. Naturally, the longer the period of an oscillator, the more difficult it is to detect.

According to hurricane expert Dr. William Gray at Colorado State University, we should see an increase in storm activity over the next 20 years. The storms are expected to cause 5 to 10 times the amount of damage on the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts than previously experienced, due to the massive increase in population and development along these coastlines.

The hurricane activity of the next 20 years should resemble the period that began in the late 1920s and lasted through the 1940s. The increase is due to higher salinity content in the Atlantic Ocean, which alters its currents and increases average ocean temperatures, fueling more storms. Gray emphasizes that this is a cyclical trend and has nothing to do with global warming (CNN, April 22, 2000).

On April 18, the CBS Evening News broadcast a segment, reported by John Blackstone, entitled “Global Warming Generating Short- and Long-Term Drastic and Dangerous Weather Changes.” Bravo to the scientists at CBS for proving the outcomes of warming that have eluded the entire camp of doomsayers since day one.

Blackstone begins by acknowledging the warmth of the “noonday sun in New Orleans… unusually warm for this date,” conclusive evidence in itself, no doubt. His interviewee is James Baker, administrator of NOAA and reknowned global warming enthusiast. According to Baker, “The January, February, March temperatures in the United States are the warmest ever in our 106 years of record keeping” which “is a very significant fact. It’s a wake-up call, really.”

And what will we be waking up to? “Severe weather damage” and “more floods, more droughts and…hurricanes with more destructive power.” Sounds ominous until, of course, one considers recent insurance industry reports, by Swiss Re and others, discrediting the idea of increased weather extremes while blaming more-costly development for rising storm damages.

Baker, though, prepares himself for the worst: “If you had a Category 4 hurricane that hit New Orleans…youd have 20 feet of water in New Orleans. Thats frightening.” Indeed, Mr. Baker, it is, which is why all should be reassured that it’s extremely unlikely.

Of course, some scientists have to justify their federal agency’s funding on a regular basis by such means as strutting about with the global warming cranks at CBS. This might explain why Baker has been trotted out by CBS no less than five times in the past month.

For example, Baker commanded a lead role in the CBS News web article titled “Global Warmings Impact Is Clear,” again highlighting the amazing research being performed by the most weather-conscious of the Big Three networks. It’s been reported, in fact, that CBS scientists, always cutting edge, are on the verge of linking climate change to Nielsen rating reports. Stay tuned…

Announcements

• Dr. Richard Lindzen, Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT, will speak at a Washington Roundtable on Science and Public Policy sponsored by the George C. Marshall Institute at noon, May 17, at the University Club, 1135 16^th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. Dr. Lindzen, will speak in, “Climate Forecasting: When the Models are Qualitatively Wrong.” For further information, please call (202) 296-9655.
• Also market your calendar for Tuesday, May 30 when an international team of top climate scientists will present their review of the draft Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. The symposium, tentatively scheduled for 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., is sponsored by the Cooler Heads Coalition and the Science and Environmental Policy Project.

Advance News On New IPCC Report

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is close to releasing its next report on global warming, and contributors have already begun bickering over what the weighty text (1,000+ pages) does and doesnt say.

Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and co-author of several sections of the new report, claims that the text “made for a sharper statement” linking warming to human activity compared to the IPCCs 1995 report. Trenberth attributes this shift to the warm final years of the last decade and new computer models which leave him convinced that “climate change has emerged from the noise of natural variability.” Finally, he points to the new reports focus on “negative elements,” which tend to mitigate or obscure global warming, such as sulfate aerosols.

On the other hand, Richard Lindzen, MIT professor and lead author of one chapter, reads the report differently. “Were really no closer to attributing [global warming since the 19^th century] to anything in particular.” He laments “the assumption that [computer climate] models are good surrogates for the data.”

For their part, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) refuses to comment “until we have completed our review of all the chapters” (Washington Post, April 18, 2000).

All of this raises a question: if the authors of the definitive report on the causes of global warming cant agree on the conclusions of the report they just wrote, can we expect open-minded policy-makers to make sense of this at all? Maybe the IPCC just needs a professional ghostwriter to clear up the confusion.

Xie Simei, Chinese South Pole expert and member of Chinas 14^th South Pole Expedition Team, released his findings on the recent break-off of three giant icebergs from the South Pole to the Xinhua News Service (April 18, 2000).

According to Simei, these new icebergs are nothing unusual. The ice and snow that comprise the Antarctic cap, as thick as 2,000 meters, shift constantly, sometimes breaking off pieces that become icebergs. He notes that this activity is especially common in the summer, when drifting icebergs can be seen more easily in satellite photographs.

Although some have attributed the icebergs appearance to global warming, Simei is quick to discount that claim, arguing instead that gravitation, warm weather, and tidal activity are the causes of this phenomenon.

Finally, Simei maintains that gains in snowfall will make up for any Antarctic ice mass lost via icebergs.

In related news, it has been noted that although one of the icebergs was very large 180 miles by 22 miles it is still quite a bit smaller than previous observed icebergs from the same area. The a largest berg ever recorded was “sighted by the U.S. Navy on November 16, 1956, at 60 miles by 208 miles in size,” notes John Daly. “Little America Harbor from 1948-55 was unusable due to the amount of icebergs clogging that area” (www.vision.net.au/~daly).

On April 5^th, NASA and several European space agencies announced that the hole in the ozone layer over the Arctic was bigger than ever this past winter. After conducting research over the past several months, they concluded that the Arctic ozone layer was depleted by as much as 60 percent.

As with past efforts to garner media attention for ozone research, the press conference was very selective and misleading. For example, the 60 percent depletion only occurred at a particular altitude, above and below which the ozone layer was not affected. And most importantly, the bottom line effect on ground-level ultraviolet B radiation (UVB) from ozone loss remains so small that scientists still cannot even say that there has been a long-term increase at all.

The press conference was much like any of a dozen others over the years, but with one relatively new wrinkle. Several participants blamed the putatively worsening ozone problem on global warming. Scientist Georgios Amanatidis explained that “Warm air is being trapped at lower levels by greenhouse gases and therefore the upper atmosphere is much colder, which helps trigger the chemical reaction that destroys ozone.” Crossing the line from science to advocacy, Amanatidis concluded that this new research “certainly puts even more emphasis than ever on the need to reduce greenhouse gases as outlined in the Kyoto Protocol.”

This is not the first time the two major global environmental issues were linked in order to sell a policy prescription as a means of killing two birds with one stone. Back in the mid-1970s, when the ozone depletion hypothesis was still new, several scientists insisted that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the class of refrigerants believed to be the main ozone depleters, were global warming gases as well.

Indeed, one 1976 study predicted that CFCs, if unregulated, would overtake carbon dioxide as the primary anthropogenic greenhouse gas by 2000. CFCs greenhouse potential was frequently offered up as a second good reason to ban these compounds, in addition to the main concerns about ozone loss.

But then the policy considerations changed and, strangely enough, so did the science. By 1987, the Montreal Protocol was signed, committing the US and other developed nations to CFC reductions based entirely on their ozone depletion potential. By the early 1990s, this treaty was strengthened into a complete ban on CFCs. At this point, there no longer was anything more to be gained by demonizing these compounds as greenhouse gases.

Quite the contrary: the Bush Administration, which was opposed to carbon dioxide emissions reductions, hoped to get credit in a greenhouse context for the CFC reductions the US was already committed to under the Montreal Protocol. Unwilling to give the US this free ride, a number of scientists changed their minds and decided that CFCs were not global warming gases after all. Their reason was that since CFCs deplete the ozone layer and ozone depletion has an offsetting cooling effect, the net greenhouse potential is a wash. From that point on, the already-banned CFCs have stayed off the table in all global warming discussions.

The science (more accurately, the spin put on the science) may have done a flip-flop, but it has been used consistently to support additional international restrictions on industrial activities.

Now we are to believe that the as-yet-unratified Kyoto Protocol will save us from the twin threats of global warming and ozone depletion. Granted, the hypothesis that there may be a link between greenhouse gas-induced stratospheric cooling and increased ozone loss is plausible enough to warrant further research. But if past is any guide, international environmental agreements marketed as two-for-one deals may not be as good a bargain as they sound.

The Moon and Climate Change

When it comes to external influences in the climate, the sun receives most of the attention. But according to some researchers, the moon also plays an important role. Three years ago, Gerard Bond of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, discovered a 1500 to 1800-year cycle in the worlds temperatures that corresponds with lunar oscillations. “This puts the Earth in the middle of a warming phase that began at the end of the Little Ice Age, and will carry on until the 24^th century,” notes the New Scientist (April 1, 2000).

Bond, who has traced the fluctuation back 100,000 years from sediment cores from the Atlantic Ocean, said, “It seems to be the pacemaker of rapid climate change,” but he had no explanatory mechanism. Charles Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography believes that changes in the alignment of the Sun, Earth and Moon affect the Earths tides, which in turn affect global temperatures.

According to Keeling, strong tides “increase the vertical mixing of water in the oceans, drawing cold ocean water from the depths to the surface, where it cools the atmosphere above.” Weak tides, on the other hand, keep the cold water at the bottom of the sea, thereby allowing the atmosphere to warm up. Indeed, tides were at their peak strength during the worst of the Little Ice Age. Keeling believes that the 1800-year cycle has been the primary driver of climate change for the last 10,000 years.

Unfortunately, Keeling claims that these findings mean that efforts to reduce greenhouse gases are more urgent than ever. Presumably, since the Earth is already warming due to natural causes mans influence on the climate may be even more dangerous than previously thought. Keelings inference is incorrect, however.

This new evidence suggests that greenhouse gases have less of an effect on global temperatures than previously thought. Scientists are still sorting out the relative magnitudes of the different forcings on the climate system, including the magnitude of manmade greenhouse gases. Global temperature increases have been much smaller than predicted by the theory of human-induced global warming, suggesting a much smaller carbon dioxide forcing than that assumed in the computer climate models. Including natural forcings such as the sun, fluctuations in oceanic circulation, and now lunar oscillations, the estimated magnitude of temperature forcing from CO2 should fall even more.

In late March one of the largest icebergs ever broke free of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. “We see an iceberg of this magnitude only once every 50 to 100 years,” noted Mathew Lazzara, senior research specialist at the University of Wisconsin Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC). “This is a naturally occurring phenomenon, but this is not a common thing.” Only a week later a smaller, but still significant, iceberg broke free from the same place.

The iceberg, which is 180 to 185 miles long and 22 miles wide, broke free due to ocean tides, according to the researchers. “As the ice shelf develops and gets influences from the ocean it starts to deteriorate where the ice meets the ocean waters. The ocean tides act upon it, causing it to crack and wearing it away. The ocean currents and the tides are responsible for getting it going and putting it into motion,” said Lazzara.

And what about global warming? “Climate change is not a factor in the break off, although people try to use the event to further their objectives,” said Professor Emeritus Charles Stearns, also of SSEC. “If the ice did not flow off Antarctica, all the water in the oceans would be deposited there. Be glad that all the water in the world does not collect on Antarctica” (University Wire, March 20, 2000).

The latest victim of CBSs morbid fascination with global warming is the science of glacial activity. On March 29, CBSs Bob McNamara played the straight man and let his on camera guests make the case that “Global warming is a reality” and glacial melt “is probably going to be a wake-up call.” But while reporting on the melting glaciers and permafrost from Alaska, McNamara mentioned in passing that, “In Greenland it’s actually getting colder.” So if the warmer weather in Alaska is due to global warming, the colder weather must be due to global warming, too?

If anyone doubts CBS has an agenda here, Dan Rather should erase them: he introduced the Alaska glacier story by casually noting, “Against the backdrop of the latest tornadoes in Texas, US climate experts say global warming and La Nina are making for longer and stronger tornado seasons.” Thats right, Dan, toss in La Nina to give yourself some wiggle room, while snidely suggesting we share collective guilt for the tragic Fort Worth tornado.

Ironically, the very next night CBS proved it can play it straight by airing a story on the virtues of warming for the British climate and its (ever-hopeful) wine industry. Sure, they threw in a few scare lines about disastrous floods and avalanches, but they’ve got to do something to get their viewers excited, right?

Potential Health Effects of Global Warming

The U.S. Global Change Research Program has released its findings regarding the effects of possible future global warming on human health in the United States. The workshop summary, part of the National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability, appears in the current issue of Environmental Health Perspectives (http://ehis.niehs.nih.gov).

According to the researchers, “We conclude that the levels of uncertainty preclude any definitive statement on the direction of potential future change for each of these health outcomes, although we developed some hypotheses.” The health outcomes considered by the researchers included, “temperature-related morbidity and mortality; health effects of extreme weather events (storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and precipitation extremes); air-pollution-related health effects; water- and food-borne diseases; and vector- and rodent-borne diseases.”

In the discussion of vectorborne diseases such as malaria and dengue and yellow fever the authors note, “The ecology and transmission dynamics of these vectorborne infections are complex and the factors that influence transmission are unique to each disease. It is not possible, therefore, to make broad generalizations on the effect of climate on vectorborne diseases.” The authors point out however, that these diseases are largely unknown in the U.S. “mainly because of changes in land use, agricultural methods, residential patterns, human behavior, and vector control.”

According to the authors, the presence of dengue fever, for instance, “is greatly influenced by house structure, human behavior, and general socioeconomic conditions.” For example, “In the period 1980-1996, 43 cases were recorded in Texas as compared to 50,333 in the three contiguous border states in Mexico.”

Regarding extreme weather events, the report states, “Climate models currently are unable to accurately project changes in extreme events such as floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes, making it difficult to assess future potential health impacts of such events.” It then proceeds to discuss in detail deaths, injuries and damages from past extreme events as well as a discussion of post-traumatic stress disorder.

The report also notes that, “Death rates are higher in the winter than in the summer and it is expected that milder winters could reduce the number of deaths in winter months.” The report concludes, “We found that most of the U.S. population is presently protected against adverse health outcomes associated with weather and/or climate, although certain demographic and geographic populations are at increased risk. Vigilance in the maintenance and improvement of public health systems and their responsiveness to changing climate conditions and to identified vulnerable subpopulations should help protect the U.S. population from any adverse health outcomes of projected climate change.”

The recent report by the National Research Council claims that the surface-based temperature record is essentially correct. There may be some problems with that assertion, however. According to new research by NASA, the urban heat island effect may be greater than previously thought. Using satellite-based, remote-sensing technology researchers have found that, “Urban Atlanta can reach 5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit or higher than surrounding rural areas.

(http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/headlines)

It has long been recognized that the urban heat island effect causes an upward bias in the surface temperature data. Scientists have attempted to adjust the data to eliminate the bias, and it is generally thought that they have been successful. But, as John Daly notes on his webpage (www.vision.net/~daly), that, “Data from GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) shows that Atlanta has warmed about 2 degrees C in the last 100 years compared with Newnan, a small town about 50 kilometers southwest of Atlanta. But the GISS adjustment for urbanization in Atlanta is only 1 degree C.”

This suggests that the adjustments have been inadequate. Daly shows other dubious adjustments on his website. Denver has only been adjusted +0.1 degrees C, even though it has experience tremendous growth since 1933 when the data begin.

Dan Rather: a shill for the environmental lobby? You decide. Witness two adjacent articles on the CBS News website, evidence of the network’s latest mis-fired salvo in the global warming battle.

In the first, “Antarctica Just Got Smaller,” from the AP newswire, Matthew Lazzara, senior researcher at the University of Wisconsin, describes the separation of a 4,200 square mile iceberg from the Ross Ice Shelf as an event that happens with some regularity: “I guess a berg of this magnitude breaks off every 50 to 100 years, and it’s been that long for one to break off this size on this end of the continent.” Lazzara claims its just too early to chalk this event up to global warming. “The ice shelves, this is their job. They calve off icebergs all the time, but they’re usually much smaller.”

Now for the spin: in a story reported on the evening news only hours later (and subsequently published on the Internet), “Sea Temperatures On The Rise,” correspondent Russ Mitchell rounded up the usual suspects for a global warming love-in. According to the article, the new iceberg “is a casualty due in part to a world in hot water,” which the story mysteriously attributes to “scientists,” none of whom would apparently let their name be tied to such an irresponsible remark. Sydney Levitus used the segment as a platform to push his latest NOAA research on ocean warming-funding-time must be near. Scare-monger David Hawkins of the Natural Resource Defense Council chimes in, “We need to be careful. We are destroying the atmosphere. Things are getting worse.”

The same could be said of CBS News with regard to journalistic integrity.