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IPCC Rumblings; The Pitfalls of Forecasting; Malaria During the Little Ice Age

by William Yeatman on February 11, 2000

in Science

IPCC Rumblings

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes Working Group I has made available a draft of its third assessment on climate change to expert reviewers through the Internet. The address was leaked and although the IPCC has since removed the draft from its website, there was sufficient time for many of the experts skeptical of global warming theory to critique the report extensively.

Some of those criticisms can be found on a debate forum at www.vision.net.au/~daly. Chapter 1 of the draft report states, “The fact that global mean temperature has increased since the late nineteenth century and that other trends have been observed does not mean that we have identified an anthropogenic effect on the climate system.” The report also says in Chapter 5 that, “The net forcing of the climate over the last 100 years (and since pre-industrial times) may be close to zero or even negative.”

These are not the types of statements made by scientists who are convinced that man is definitely causing global warming. Of course, several statements in the draft of the Second Assessment were equally damning, but many were purged prior to publication, causing a major scandal. No wonder that the IPCC doesnt want the drafts to be open to the public.

One reviewer in New Zealand, Dr. Vincent Gray, pointed out that the new report has 40 different scenarios and all are treated as equally likely, that is, there is no longer any predicted range of warming. This makes it difficult to convince governments that there is a pressing need for drastic energy cuts. So, Tom Wigley, with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has come up with an “indicative scenario” in a paper he wrote for the Pew Center on Climate Change that was based in part on the IPCC draft report. Wigleys paper was widely touted in the press last summer as definitive.

Dr. Gray also notes that the IPCC ignores the fact that CO2 emissions have been falling and overestimates other parameters such as world population, economic development, fuel usage, etc. They set their parameters in the computer models, for example, based on the “latest most accurate climate and physical quantity measurements.” Then they multiply each by a “precautionary principle factor, which is currently 250 percent.”

“For example,” commented Gray, “the measured rate of increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the past 35 years, is 0.4 percent a year. So the figure incorporated in the model is 250 percent times 0.4, [or] one percent a year.” According to Gray, the rate of methane emission rise in the atmosphere has been falling for the last 15 years. “But the modellist cannot tolerate this,” said Gray. “The trend must be instantly reversed. A similar adjustment awaits all the other parameters.” Other extensive reviews are also available at the website.

The Pitfalls of Forecasting

The recent major snowstorm along the East Coast caught weather forecasters by complete surprise. They had predicted 2 to 4 inches of snowfall; 8 to 12 inches fell instead. Roger Pielke, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and Daniel Sarewitz, of Columbia Universitys Center for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, argue that such misses are not uncommon and indeed are to be expected. “The idea that fast computers and sophisticated science can give us perfect weather predictions is nonsense,” the authors wrote. “Weather systems are complex phenomena whose behavior can only be approximated, even by the most advanced technologies.”

Problems with forecasting carry over into the realm of climate science, say the authors. “Predictions of global warming have focused international environmental efforts on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But future economic trends, geopolitical events, and technological advances three variables that defy predictive accuracy will have a much greater impact on emissions than any conceivable international agreements.”

They also warn that, “Predictions of the future can be more dangerous than ignorance, if they induce us to behave in ways that reduce our resilience in the face of inevitable uncertainties and contingencies” (Washington Times, February 2, 2000).

Malaria During the Little Ice Age

Green activists continue to claim that global warming will shift diseases such as malaria from the tropics to the temperate zones. These predictions are wrong, according to Paul Reiter, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In an article appearing in Emerging Infectious Diseases (March-April 2000) he writes, “Until the second half of the 20th century, malaria was endemic and widespread in many temperate regions, with major epidemics as far north as the Arctic Circle.” He further notes that, “From 1564 to the 1730s the coldest period of the Little Ice Age malaria was an important cause of illness and death in several parts of England.” The article can be found at www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol6no1/reiter.htm.

Megadroughts Common to Africa

With increased study of evidence from the distant past, scientists are becoming increasingly aware that climate change, indeed catastrophic climate change, is the norm. The New York Times (February 8, 2000) reports that recent research has found that East Africa experienced “decades-long droughts far longer and more severe than any in recorded weather history [that] alternated with periods when rainfall was heavier than today.” The article also notes that, “The droughts dwarfed any experienced by humans in the 20th century, including the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s and the African Sahel drought of the 1970s.”

According to Dr. Dirk Verschuren, who headed the research that appeared in the January 27 issue of Nature, “We have to anticipate that a major catastrophic drought will happen sooner or later, and we must prepare for such an event.” The New York Times reports a “broader lesson” noted by Verschuren: “That irrespective of any human impact on the worlds climate, there is great natural variability in rainfall, and this variability may swamp the effects of any global warming produced by industrial emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.”

Etc.

  • The February 6 Baltimore Sun reported on a 300 percent increase in the population of Adelie penguins around Cape Royds, Antarctica over the past two decades. Biologist David Ainley “blames” global warming, arguing that reduced ice cover has now placed these penguins closer to their oceanic food sources, thus boosting survival rates.

Before global warming advocates add penguin overpopulation to their list of woes, they may want to sit down with their ozone depletion counterparts and try to get their stories straight. As you recall, these are the very same Adelie penguins many claimed are threatened by the Antarctic ozone hole. Increased solar radiation through the ozone hole was supposed to decimate phytoplankton populations, which form the base of the food chain upon which the penguins and other Antarctic animals rely.

  • Green activists and press and politicians with views sympathetic to the Green agenda take every opportunity to highlight temperature events that can be linked to warmer temperatures. They never seem to take notice, however, when the weather turns cold and nasty. In the interest of balance, we would like to review the other side of the climate ledger.

  • Australias National Climate Center reported that it has just experienced its coldest summer in 50 years. It blames the cold snap on La Nia, but as pointed out at www.vision.net.au/~daly/, “this is neither the longest nor the biggest such La Nia in recent decades.”

  • The opening of the Alaska snow crab fishery is being delayed by an unusual buildup of ice in the Bering Sea. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the scheduled opening of January 15 may be postponed until late April or May if the ice pushes much further south. These are the worst ice conditions in the area since 1975.

  • The “city of eternal spring” Kunming in China just had its worst snowfall in 17 years and Beijing just finished its coldest January in 23 years.

  • Moving further west, Israel experienced its heaviest snowfall in 50 years. The country came to a complete standstill, though children enjoyed snowball fights and building snowmen.

  • Still further west, snowfalls for much of the U.S. have been the heaviest in 25 years.

Of course we know that these events do not disprove the theory of manmade global warming, nor do they portend a coming ice age, but neither do the events that Green activists cite “prove” that manmade global warming is real.

Internet will Require Greater Energy Reliability; Implementing Kyoto Over Our Heads

by William Yeatman on January 31, 2000

in Blog

Internet will Require Greater Energy Reliability

On January 13, CEI Senior Fellow Mark Mills gave a presentation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Energy and National Security Program to follow up his Greening Earth Society analysis on why “The Internet Begins With Coal.” During the speech, he argued that the electricity and telecomm industries must begin to communicate with each other on matters relating to the policy, structure, and business aspects of the Internet to make the long-run development of the information economy a reality.

Mills focused on how the Internet economy will require the development of new levels of electricity distribution reliability that have not yet been achieved within the current distribution mechanism. As businesses increasingly provide internet-based services, minor outages caused by faults in the distribution mechanism will impose increasingly high costs on the economy. In addition to this, the physical hardware of the Internet itself requires that its power sources operate at a reliability of 99.9999% to function effectively.

As a result, he predicts that companies will be willing to spend money to correct these shortcomings. Telecomm deregulation enabled companies to build overlapping distribution networks to improve reliability. Electricity deregulation could have the same effect.

Mills also predicts that combination diesel/electric devices will be the technology of choice for companies seeking to improve reliability outside of the current distribution grid. As companies continue to produce these devices, internet-based companies will continue to buy them and maintain them outside of the grid.

Overall, Mills believes that if the deregulation process is conducted effectively, the electricity industry will be turned on its side. Vertically integrated firms will be replaced by firms that adopt the matrix-like organizational structure used in the telecomm industry. Of course, all of this could be short-circuited if Kyoto-style limits on energy use become a reality.

 Implementing Kyoto Over Our Heads

Stopping bad environmental policy at the international level is becoming increasingly difficult due to the vast network of supranational organizations with the power to autonomously create and implement policy. So far the U.S. has resisted being saddled with the burdensome, but largely ineffectual, Kyoto Protocol, on the domestic front. But other means of pushing the Kyoto agenda are being pursued at the international level, which are almost entirely shielded from U.S. Congressional oversight.

The World Bank, for example, has just launched its Prototype Carbon Fund that will create a market for carbon and a way for companies to get carbon credits toward future possible Kyoto commitments. The fund will be made up with money contributed by industrialized nations and private companies. The money will then be “invested” in CO2 reductions in developing countries. “The PCF is intended to invest in projects that will produce high quality greenhouse gas emission reductions that could be registered with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change for the purposes of the Kyoto Protocol,” the World Bank said.

So far Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden have made funding commitments, as well as private companies from Japan and Belgium (BNA Daily Environment Report, January 19, 2000). The ploy behind the PCF is similar to that under the various “credit for voluntary action” schemes proposed in the U.S. Companies that contribute to the fund for whatever reason will be awarded carbon credits that will be worthless unless the Kyoto Protocol is ratified. The result will be the creation of an industry-based constituency that favors implementation of Kyoto.

Global Warming Activists Agitate Iowans; Kyotos Last Gasp?; Warning: Buying This Car May be Dangerous to Your Health

by William Yeatman on January 31, 2000

in Politics

Global Warming Activists Agitate Iowans

The Washington, D.C.-based green activist group, Ozone Action, has been protesting the lack of attention paid to global warming in the presidential campaign. They have disrupted the debates between the Democratic presidential candidates and carried around a 25-foot inflatable ear of corn with a banner saying “Drought Kills Corn.” One activist was even interrogated by the secret police after getting too close to Vice President Al Gore.

They also convinced several prominent Iowans into signing a letter urging the candidates to present detailed plans on how they would deal with global warming. Thirty scientists and several elected officials have signed the letter. Neither of the two scientists mentioned in an Associated Press article (January 19, 2000) are climatologists. Jim Colbert is an associate professor of botany and Ricardo Salvador, an associate agronomy professor at Iowa State University. If Ozone Actions past is a guide, then very few if any of the signatories have any expertise on climate matters.

Kyotos Last Gasp?

Is the Kyoto Protocol nearing the end of the road? With the President refusing to submit it to the Senate for ratification, knowing it would almost certainly be defeated, the question of whether it is still viable is relevant.

Grist Magazine (www.gristmagazine.com) an online publication, published a debate on January 17, 2000 on whether Kyoto is dead between David Victor, a Senior Fellow in Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Dan Lashof, Senior Scientist in the Natural Resources Defense Councils Air and Energy Program.

Victor argues that the protocol is dead. No action is likely before the November elections, and even if the next administration makes ratification a top priority it would be 2003 before the process is completed. That would leave five years to meet the Kyoto targets.

“The problem,” says Victor, “is that most of the technologies that use fossil fuels are long-lived the stock of automobiles, for example, has a lifetime of about two decades; most buildings last even longer.” We could meet the Kyoto targets, said Victor, “but only if large fractions of the existing capital stock were retired before the end of their useful lives, which would be wasteful and extremely expensive.”

Lashof is more optimistic. He argues that Kyoto is moving ahead as planned and that the obstacles to its final triumph are largely fabricated by the opposition. He claims that Europe is moving forward with implementing Kyoto, although Victor says that Europe is all talk and little action. Lashof also claims that “industry opposition to Kyoto is fracturing.” Moreover, the fact that the U.S. economy has had strong growth rates over the last two years without a rise greenhouse gas emissions shows that we can meet Kyotos targets at little cost. (He fails to mention that lower energy consumption was largely due to mild winters.) Finally, Lashof claims that public opinions polls show strong public support for Kyotos goals, and the public gets what it wants.

Warning: Buying This Car May be Dangerous to Your Health

The European Union has issued a directive requiring passenger cars sold within its borders to carry a label showing its fuel economy and levels of carbon dioxide emissions. “[T]he provision of accurate, relevant, and comparable information on the specific fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of passenger cars may influence consumer choice in favor of those cars which use less fuel and thereby emit less CO2, thereby encouraging manufacturers to take steps to reduce the fuel consumption of the cars they manufacture,” the commission said.

Member states will be required to make the directive national law by January 18, 2001. By December 31, 2003, they will be required to submit a report on the laws effectiveness (BNA Daily Environment Report, January 19, 2000).

Climate Flip-Flop; Climate Change Certainty Overstated

by William Yeatman on January 31, 2000

in Science

Climate Flip-Flop

A recent report by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences has attempted to reconcile the difference in temperature trends between surface and atmospheric observations. The surface data shows a strong warming trend, while the satellite data show a zero to slightly positive trend. The climate models, however, predict that the troposphere would warm more rapidly than the surface in response to increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. The report noted in particular the ground-based warming observed over the last 20 years.

One explanation may lie in a natural climate cycle that occurs every 20 to 30 years, known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). According to the scientists at the University of Washington who discovered the phenomenon, the Pacific Ocean goes through cycles of warm and cool periods every 20 or 30 years. The years 1925 to 1946 and 1977 to 1998, for instance, were dominated by a warm phase, while cooler Pacific waters dominated the period in between. This cold phase leads to weather patterns in the U.S. similar to those produced by La Nia (Washington Post, January 20, 2000).

This may help explain global temperature trends over these time periods. The global temperature record measured at the surface shows that the years 1911 to 1945 experienced a rate of warming similar to the one from 1977 to the present. Of course, the cooling trend from 1945 to 1977 had some scientists, such as Stephen Schneider, worried about global cooling. It may be that the PDO can go a long way toward explaining many of the trends observed in the global temperature data as well as the discrepancy between the satellite and surface temperature measurements. If we are indeed entering a cold phase, winters will be colder and wetter, with a higher possibility of drought in the Southwest. This could also lead to heightened hurricane activity in the Atlantic.

In a related item, Colorado State University hurricane expert William Gray has released his hurricane predictions for the year 2000. He predicts that 11 named storms will form in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico this year. This heightened hurricane activity is due to “a marked shift in temperatures in both oceans, back to levels not seen since the active hurricane decades of the 1940s and 1950s,” notes the Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News (January 21, 1999). “The data reflect a naturally occurring fluctuation in ocean conditions, not a sign of global climate change.”

Climate Change Certainty Overstated

Colorados state climatologist, Roger Pielke, Sr., a professor at Colorado State University, says that people should not worry about global warming, according to the Denver Post (January 14, 2000). Pielke presented research at the American Meteorological Societys annual meeting that showed that land use change has a significant effect on the climate system that is not adequately accounted for in the climate models. “If land-use change is as important on the climate system as our results suggest, there is a large uncertainty in the future climate, since there is no evidence that we can accurately predict the future landscape,” said Pielke.

The presence of plants, for instance, influences the Earths energy budget, said Pielke. Increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations may increase the area covered by plants, which will lead to more transpiration. This water vapor could have one of two effects: It could cool the atmosphere directly or through cloud formation or it could warm the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. “This is an example of a complex feedback between vegetation and the atmosphere that we do not completely understand,” Pielke said. Other influences on land use can also effect the Earths energy budget.

“Since landscape and other atmosphere-surface interactions involve complex, non-linear feedbacks, it becomes impossible to predict future climate accurately,” Pielke said. “This suggests that the scientific community might be overstating the certainty of global climate change.”

Seniors Outraged Over Global Warming Proposals

by William Yeatman on December 31, 1999

in Politics, Science

The global warming threat is the latest science fiction adventure. Senior citizens especially need to be diligent and concerned with the current efforts of politicans and bureaucrats seeking greater regulatory power by scare tactics over so-called global warming. The alarmists are using faulty science to reach untenable conclusions. If we allow the government to enact restrictive measures, whether by law or by a treaty agreed to by the U.S., we will face an energy crisis which will make the energy/oil crisis of the 1970s look like a minor league event.

Seniors would find regulations would affect the energy they use in heating their homes, would hamper their mobility, and would impose new tax burdens. American senior citizens will not buy any new schemes to increase their taxes and escalate federal regulations.

– James L. Martin, President, The 60 Plus Association

For more on the proposed treaty’s impact on seniors see the Impact on Consumers page.

Aviation and Global Warming; Global Warming Caused by Foreign Aid?

by William Yeatman on December 28, 1999

in Politics

Aviation and Global Warming

Aviation has come under attack in the global warming debate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released a report that airplanes are “polluting the skies and changing the weather,” reports the Earth Island Journal (December 22, 1999).

The report claims that planes account for 3.5 percent of the global warming experienced to date and could account for 15 percent by 2050. The IPCC report recommends that governments discourage air travel and encourage travel by train. The report also calls for higher taxes on fuel used in airplanes.

Global Warming Caused by Foreign Aid?

The one thing that both proponents and opponents of global warming policies can agree on is the need to end government subsidies for fossil fuels. The World Bank, for example, has promoted $13.9 billion worth of fossil fuel projects since 1992, according to the Earth Island Journal (December 22, 1999). These projects will produce 37.5 billion tons of CO2 in the next 20 to 50 years.

A report by Friends of the Earth and the Institute for Policy Studies shows that from 1992 to 1996 the U.S. Export-Import Bank and Overseas

Private Investment Corporation financed $23.2 billion in oil, gas and coal projects around the world.

Internet Saves Energy

by William Yeatman on December 28, 1999

in Blog

The idea that the Internet will be an energy saving panacea is not new. After all, the ability to telecommute, to shop and gather information on the Internet and other useful services, have allowed people to use less energy on these activities. The question is whether the overall use of energy has decreased.

According to a study by Joseph Romm, executive director of the Center for Energy and Climate Studies, the answer is yes. The study shows that even though U.S. economic growth increased by 9 percent during 1997 and 1998, energy consumption per dollar of GDP fell 3.2 percent in 1997 and 3.9 percent in 1998.

This sharp drop in energy intensity has occurred even though energy prices are very low. Romm says that the Internet is the reason. Romm also claims that economic forecasts of the costs of emission reductions have not taken this into account. “If the model is right, then it makes all the other economic modelsall wrong, and that has its own profound implications,” he said. “We anticipate that were in a position, for example, where far less effort will be needed for the United States to reduce greenhouse gasesthan we once thought.”

Romm errs in his assessment, however. Energy experts argue that the reason energy consumption fell by such a large amount in 1997 and 1998 was due to a mild winter that lowered home heating needs, not because of increased Internet use.

Moreover, in evaluating the energy appetite of the Internet (the essential first part of any two-part equation to determine a net energy benefit), the study concludes:

“The authors found that the Internet itself is not a major energy user, largely because it draws heavily on existing communications and computing infrastructure.”

Mark Mills, CEI Senior Fellow, and co-author of a seminal analysis of the Internets electric appetite (Forbes, May, 31 1999), wrote, “Let me be kind; their observation about Internet energy use is breathtakingly myopic. Just what exactly do the studys authors think the past half decade of hundreds of billions in new investment in telecommunications and computing equipment has been for and driven by, if not the Internet?

“The exponential growth in equipment (and related Wall Street valuation) constitutes the electric-intensive infrastructure of the Internet. None of it was existing. The Internet does improve efficiency, but at the cost of greater electric use. The jury is out on whether the net effect is more or less overall energy use.”

The internet may indeed lower energy intensity, but the history of energy use shows that decreasing energy intensity almost always leads to greater overall energy use.

Are Humans Melting the Arctic?; Warm Winters: Polar Vortex or Global Warming?

by William Yeatman on December 28, 1999

in Science

Are Humans Melting the Arctic?

The melting of sea ice has been a worry to global warming advocates for some time. There is little evidence to suggest that humans cause the melting, however. Recently, Science published an article claiming that manmade global warming is a major cause of decreases in arctic sea ice. Using a computer model the researchers found that when greenhouse gases are not factored into the equation there would be a much smaller decrease in arctic sea ice.

The World Climate Report (December 13, 1999) suggests a much simpler test, however. “Perhaps instead of comparing observed change in sea ice with the models change in sea ice, it might be better to see if reality is likely to be involved.” A weather balloon temperature record of arctic temperatures dating from 1958, compiled by James Angell, a scientist at the U.S. Department of Commerce, shows a problem with the conclusions in the Science article.

The record shows little correlation between melting sea ice and temperatures. For example, arctic sea ice melts only in the summer. Yet even though we see a decrease in arctic sea ice there is no corresponding increase in summer temperatures. WCR suggests that perhaps the warming takes place in the winter, lowering wintertime ice accumulation.

A look at yearly temperatures, however, shows this not to be the case. From 1958 to 1988 there was no statistically significant warming in the arctic. Yet the sea ice has been retreating for over 40 years, showing no causal connection between temperature and sea ice extent.

There is a lesson to be learned here: Computer models outcomes should not confused with the real world outcomes no matter how closely they mimic them. The causal variables that drive computer-generated outcomes should be checked against empirical data. Instead, climate modelers claim that their virtual variables explain the real world despite contrary evidence.

Warm Winters: Polar Vortex or Global Warming?

A new study on shifting wind patterns has partly attributed a series of warmer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere and declining sea-level pressures in the Arctic to changes in the “polar vortex.” The study, introduced at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union by David Thompson and John Wallace of the University of Washington, shows that the polar vortex has tightened since 1970 and that upper-atmospheric winds have been blowing in a smaller, more circular motion around the polar area.

This phenomenon may be responsible for the recent severe winter weather in the western United States and Europe, due to the interaction of high temperature fronts from the Northern Hemisphere with cold temperature fronts from the North Pole.

The researchers are still undecided as to whether global warming is to blame for part of this phenomenon. The report stated that if coming winters continue to experience higher pressures over the arctic and more wintry weather in the Northern Hemisphere, as they have the last couple of winters, it may be an indication that the earlier changes were due to a natural cycle that is now returning to its previous state.

However, if the coming winters shift toward warmer weather, the study suggests that it would convince most scientists that some human factors must be involved (Reuters, December 17, 1999).

Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate; Myth Making and Crystal Ball Science

by William Yeatman on December 22, 1999

in Science

Another Scientific Assessment

S. Fred Singer, President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), has just released a book, Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate which evaluates the current state of knowledge surrounding the greenhouse debate.

Singer makes several important points: Regarding the purported peer review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Singer argues that “The IPCC chapters were never ‘peer-reviewed’ in the generally accepted sense . . .” Normal peer review is done by anonymous referees, but the IPCC reviewers were chosen by those who prepared the summaries. “There is no record available as to what comments from reviewers were ignored; nor is there a record of minority opinions,” states Singer.

The claimed “consensus” of approximately 2,000 scientists is also dubious. This figure includes about 80 lead authors who actually wrote the chapters, several hundred scientists who allowed their work to be quoted as well as hundreds of reviewers who may or may not have agreed with the report or whether their comments were used or not.

Though the IPCC admitted that there were minority views that it was “not able to accommodate” it did not reveal “the size of the minority nor the seriousness of their disagreements.” Several surveys have revealed that the consensus may be exaggerated.

Singer argues that the temperature record shows an unusual warming that began in the last century and continued until 1940. Many scientists believe that this is a recovery from the Little Ice Age. From 1940 to 1975 temperatures dropped substantially and then rose again through the 1980s. Studies which have carefully remove the urban heat island effect in the temperature record have confirmed that, contrary popular belief that the 1980s were the warmest decade on record, temperatures reached their peak in 1940.

One of the explanations given in the IPCC for the discrepancy between the predictions of Global Circulation Models (GCMs) and observations is the existence of manmade sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere which reflects incoming radiation. Recent studies, however, have found that the radiative forcing effects of aerosols are small.

Singer addresses several other problems with the global warming hypothesis, but the bottom line is that he sees little reason to go down the ruinous road that has been proposed in Kyoto. For information on how to obtain the book see SEPP’s webpage at www.his.com/~sepp/.

The Art of Myth-making

Recently Dr. Michael MacCracken of the Office of the United States Global Change Research Program made statements regarding climate change entitled “The Truth about Ten Leading Myths.”

The question is whether Dr. MacCracken was telling the truth or making his own myths. Dr. Sallie Baliunas and Dr. Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Mount Wilson Observatory attempt to answer this question in a pamphlet for the George C. Marshall Institute.

Dr. MacCracken states, “In the United States, average temperatures have remained high even in the presence of the increasing cooling influence of sulfate aerosols . . .” Dr.’s Baliunas and Soon reply, “The temperature of the U.S., which has a relatively good surface record taken from many stations, has shown no significant warming trend over the last 100 years. The aerosol cooling effect referred to is extremely complex and difficult to quantify, but seems too small to reduce the projected warming trends.”

In an endnote they quote a paper by James Hansen, et. al. which appeared in the Journal of Geophysical Research 102, 6831-6854: “Our specific conclusion regarding anthropogenic aerosols is that their net ‘direct’ impact on global surface temperature . . . is probably small and even its sign is uncertain.”

In another statement MacCraken claims, “Climate models do well at representing large-scale features . . .” The IPCC, however, states, “. . . [L]arge model-model differences in estimates of the spectrum of natural variability, both in terms of variance levels and large-scale spatial patterns, imply considerable uncertainties in our ability to specify the spectrum of natural variability and subsequently to detect any greenhouse warming signal – even if the space time evolution of such signal were perfectly known.” The full critique can be downloaded from the George C. Marshall Insitute’s webpage at http://www.marshall.org/.

Crystal Ball Science

It takes a certain amount of bravado to predict the future, and among some climate scientists bravado is in plentiful supply. J.D. Mahlman, however, seems to have cornered the market. Not only does he endorse predictions made 100 years into the future but he assigns actual magnitudes as to the likelihood that these predictions will come true.

He claims, for example, that there is a greater than 9 out of 10 chance that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over pre-industrial levels will warm the planet from 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C in the next century and that sea-levels will rise by 25-75 cm. He also claims that there is a greater than 2 out of 3 chance that there will be a marked decrease in soil moisture as a result of higher summer temperatures over northern midlatitude continents and that tropical storms, once formed, will become more intense.

Mahlman, however, disagrees with the projection that the number of tropical storms, hurricanes, and typhoons per year will increase. One wonders what crystal ball Mahlman might be looking into to get these precise probability estimates (Science, November 21, 1997).

Hurricane Activity

The December issue of the AMS Newsletter (www.ametsoc.org/AMS/newsltr/nl_12_97.html) of the American Meteorological Society reports that 1997 tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic hurricane basin was well below normal. Seven tropical storms formed and just three reached hurricane strength. The long term average are 10 and 6 respectively. There were no tropical storms in the month of August for the first time since 1961 and there was only one named system during the August-September period which hasn’t happened since 1929.

There were eight tropical cyclones in the central Pacific, nearly twice as many as the 36-year average of 4.5, tying the record for the fourth highest since 1961. However, none of these reached hurricane strength in the central Pacific making it the third consecutive year without a hurricane. This has not happened since 1963-65.

Colorado State researcher William Gray and his colleagues have predicted that 1998 hurricane activity will be slightly below average. He explains that, “Even though El Nino negatively influenced our 1997 hurricane forecast, it is our belief that this event will die before or shortly after the 1998 hurricane season officially begins.” Residual effects of El Nino, argues Gray, will have a dampening effect on 1998 hurricane activity.

Etc.

Reporters, delegates, NGOs, and other climate conference participants experienced a preview of what life will be like on an energy starvation diet. In keeping with the fanaticism of the occasion, the thermostat of the Kyoto conference hall was turned WAY down.

Three penguin ice carvings placed outside by greens who planned for the ice birds to melt in the “warming” climate stood frozen until the sixth day of the conference. Mother Nature obviously didn’t cooperate for the television cameras. The politically-incorrect air in Kyoto was positively cold. Shivering conference-goers were walking around with coats, scarves, even gloves – indoors. Apparently nobody at the UN considered the human health effects of under-heated facilities. People of the world, this is your future if the global warming lobby gets its way.

Kyoto Goals Difficult to Meet

by William Yeatman on December 7, 1999

in Blog

According to Australian government officials, it would be very difficult to meet the goals set out in the Kyoto Protocol, even though Australia secured one of the least onerous targets among industrialized nations. Australias target is an emission level of 8 percent above 1990 levels. “Our abatement costs are high because we have built our economy around, a lot of our economy, around comparatively cheap carbon fuels,” Environment Minister Robert Hill said.

Hills main objection is that developing nations are not required to meet emissions reduction targets. “We accepted a commitment in Kyoto that’s challenging for Australia but nevertheless fair compared to that accepted by others. And we are in the process of implementing programs to meeting that commitment,” said Hill.

“If the result of the Kyoto Protocol is simply a transfer of resources emissions from a developed country to the developing, and you don’t get a better environmental outcome, then you may get a[n]economic loss. That’s why it’s a challenge to bring developing countries emitters within the loop in a meaningful way as soon as possible to avoid that” (AAP Newsfeed, December 2, 1999).

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