2004

Climate experts respond to Arctic Climate Impact Assessment

by William Yeatman on November 15, 2004

in Politics, Science

Today 11 climate experts sent a letter (please see below) to Senator John McCain (R-AZ) who is the Chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee and is holding a full committee hearing this morning to hear testimony on the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA).

In the letter, the climate experts respond to statements made in the ACIA that temperature changes in the Arctic provide an early indication of global warming. The signers of the letter point out that sediment and ice core samples show that the arctic has experienced past warming that can not be attributed to greenhouse gas concentrations. There is also a history of strong year-to-year variability of Arctic temperatures. The letter also calls for the need for advances in Arctic climate science in both models and measurements in order to assess a more complete picture of Arctic climate understanding.

The following climate experts signed the letter: R. Tim Patterson, PhD, Professor of Geology at Carleton University; Tim Ball, PhD, Retired – Professor of Climatology at University of Winnipeg; Anthony Lupo, PhD, Professor of Atmospheric Science at University of Missouri – Columbia; David Legates, PhD, Associate Professor in Climatology at University of Delaware; Pat Michaels, PhD, Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia; George Taylor, M.S. Meteorology; Gary D. Sharp, PhD Scientific Director, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study; Roy W. Spencer, PhD Principal Research Scientists, The University of Alabama in Huntsville; Jon Reisman, Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy; University of Maine at Machias/ Maine Public Policy Institute Scholar, Willie Soon, PhD, Science Director, Tech Central Station and Sallie Baliunas, PhD, Enviro- Science Editor, Tech Central Station. 

    November 16, 2004
    The Honorable John McCain
    United States Senate
    Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator McCain:

As you know, climate varies in the Arctic more than globally-averaged measures reveal, prompting not inconsiderable ecosystem responses.

The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report by the Arctic Council documents significant ecosystem response to surface temperature warming trends that occurred in some areas since the mid-19th century and in the last thirty years.

Estimates of the amount of surface warming trends over those periods and their causes relies on scientific knowledge of natural and anthropogenic effects, the latter including landscape modification, urbanization, plus the air’s concentration of aerosols and greenhouse gases. Moreover, Arctic climate varies dramatically from one region to another, and over time in ways that cannot be accurately reproduced by climate models. The quantitative impacts of natural and anthropogenic factors remain highly uncertain, especially for a region as complex as the Arctic.

For example, for Greenland’s instrumental surface temperatures a team of experts headed at Los Alamos National Laboratory recently found: 

     Since 1940, however, the Greenland coastal stations data have undergone
     predominantly a cooling trend. At the summit of the Greenland ice sheet,
     the summer average temperature has decreased at the rate of 2.2 degrees C
     per decade since the beginning of the measurements in 1987. This suggests
     that the Greenland ice sheet and coastal regions are not following the
     current global warming trend.(1)

Analysis of ice corings of the Penny Ice Cap on Baffin Island show that the recent warming trend is unexceptional compared to natural variability in centuries past, when the enhanced greenhouse effect cannot have had much impact: 

     Our sea-salt record suggests that, while the turn of the [21st] century

     was characterized by generally milder sea-ice conditions in Baffin Bay,
     the last few decades of sea-ice extent lie within Little Ice Age
     variability and correspond to instrumental records of lower temperatures
     in the Eastern Canadian Arctic over the past three decades.(2)

From a detailed study of sea core sediment from the last 10,000 years in the Chukchi Sea, researchers concluded that, “in the recent past, the western Arctic Ocean was much warmer than it is today.” They also found that “during the middle Holocene [approximately 6,000 years ago] the August sea surface temperature fluctuated by 5 degrees C and was 3-7 degrees C warmer than it is today,”(3)

The relatively recent discovery of the PDO, or Pacific Decadal Oscillation,(4) points to a strong natural component of the recent warming trend. Researchers noted in 1997: 

     Our results add support to those of previous studies suggesting that the
     climatic regime shift of the late 1970’s is not unique in the century-
     long instrumental climate record, nor in the record of North Pacific
     salmon production. In fact, we find that signatures of a recurring
     pattern of interdecadal climate variability are widespread and detectable
     in a variety of Pacific basin climate and ecological systems. This
     climate pattern — hereafter referred to as the Pacific (inter)Decadal
     Oscillation, or PDO (following co-author S.R.H.’s suggestion) — is a
     pan-Pacific phenomenon that also includes interdecadal climate
     variability in the tropical Pacific.

The Great Pacific Climate Shift of 1976-1977 is typical in the documented pattern of natural climate fluctuations going back at least several centuries. In Alaska in particular, although the onset of the 1976-1977 shift ended the several-decades-long period of cold in the middle of the 20th century recorded by many of Alaska’s good weather station records, it returned temperatures to warmth seen in the early decades of the 20th century. Thus, it is unsurprising that Alaskan ecosystems have responded to recent warmth, which has the characteristic step-upward shape of the PDO, but not the gradual but large warming trend implied by the enhanced greenhouse effect.

The PDO may have shifted back in 1998-99 to its mid-20th century state, which would tend to deliver sharply cooler temperatures in the next several decades to the western U.S., including western and southern Alaska. For example, scientists from British Columbia’s Institute of Ocean Sciences, Fisheries and Oceans and Oregon State University’s College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences found recent cooling of the North Pacific: 

     Subsurface upper ocean waters off Oregon and Vancouver Island were about
     1 degree C cooler in July 2002 than in July 2001. The anomalously cool
     layer coincides with the permanent halocline which has salinities 32.2 to
     33.8, suggesting an invasion of nutrient-rich Subarctic waters. The
     anomalously cool layer lies at 30-150 m.(5)

Surface air temperatures (SAT) going back 125 years were studied from “newly available long-term Russian observations of SAT from coastal stations, and sea-ice extent and fast-ice thickness from the Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, and Chuckchi seas.”(6) Those researchers found “strong intrinsic variability, dominated by multi-decadal fluctuations with a timescale of 60-80 years.” Comparing those measures of Arctic regional variability to that of computer simulations, the researchers concluded that observations do “not support amplified warming in Polar Regions predicted by GCMs [General Circulation Models].”

A comprehensive study of Arctic temperature records(7) found that “in the Arctic in the period 1951-90, no tangible manifestations of the greenhouse effect can be identified.” However, strong year-to-year variability is present, as the researcher notes that “a more recent analysis of mean seasonal and annual air-temperature trends in the Arctic (Przybylak, in press) shows that in the mid-1990s there occurred quite a large rise in air temperature,” and as a consequence, “the areally averaged annual air temperature for the whole Arctic for the last 5 year period of the 20th century was the warmest since 1950 (1.0 degree C above the 1951-90 average).”

Those examples demonstrate that Arctic climate has and will continue to exhibit intricate patterns not reliably reproduced by global climate simulations, thus underscoring their scientific incompleteness and need for advances in Arctic climate science, in measurements, theory and models.

The history of the Arctic and its ecosystems remains complex, a fact too often perceived by reporters under deadline or extremists as irrelevant nuance. Ecosystems and humans survived the warming at the beginning of the 20th century, as they survived the warmth from A.D. 900 to 1200, when Thule people migrated from Alaska across the Arctic while Vikings farmed in Greenland soil now permafrost and sailed in Arctic waters now permanent pack ice. They survived the warming of the last 15,000 years as earth emerged from the last glacial period, whose termination produced much more radical temperature shocks than those observed in the last several decades.

As Professor Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and IPCC author concluded in testimony before your May 1, 2001 Commerce Committee hearing: 

     The question of where do we go from here is an obvious and important one.
     From my provincial perspective, an important priority should be given to
     figuring out how to support and encourage science (and basic science
     underlying climate in particular) while removing incentives to promote
     alarmism. The benefits of leaving future generations a better
     understanding of nature would far outweigh the benefits (if any) of ill
     thought out attempts to regulate nature in the absence of such
     understanding.
We appreciate your efforts to support scientific fact-finding concerning responses of Arctic ecosystems to climate variability. 
    Sincerely,
    R. Tim Patterson, PhD
    Professor of Geology
    Carleton University
    Tim Ball, PhD
    Retired – Professor of Climatology
    University of Winnipeg
    Anthony Lupo, PhD
    Professor of Atmospheric Science
    University of Missouri – Columbia
    David Legates, PhD
    Associate Professor in Climatology
    University of Delaware
    Pat Michaels, PhD
    Professor of Environmental Sciences
    University of Virginia
    Virginia State Climatologist
    George Taylor, M.S. Meteorology
    Oregon State Climatologist
    Gary D. Sharp, PhD
    Scientific Director
    Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study
    Roy W. Spencer, PhD
    Principal Research Scientists
    The University of Alabama in Huntsville
    Jon Reisman
    Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy
    University of Maine at Machias/ Maine Public Policy Institute Scholar
    Willie Soon, PhD
    Science Director, Tech Central Station
    Sallie Baliunas, PhD
    Enviro-Science Editor Tech Central Station
    (1) P. Chylek, J.E. Box and G. Lesins 2004 Global warming and the
        Greenland ice sheet, Climatic Change 63 201-221
    (2) N. S. Grumet, C.P. Wake, P.A. Mayewski, G.A. Zielinski, S.I. Whitlow,
        R.M. Koerner, D.A. Fisher, and J.M. Woollett, 2001, Variability of
        sea-ice extent in Baffin Bay over the last millennium, Climatic
        Change,49, 129-145
    (3) D. Darby, J. Bischof, G. Cutter, A. de Vernal, C. Hillaire-Marcel, G.
        Dwyer, J. McManus, L. Osterman, L. Polyak and R. Poore  2001, New
        record shows pronounced changes in Arctic Ocean circulation and
        climate.  EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 82, 601 and
        607
    (4) N. J. Mantua, S. R. Hare, Y. Zhang, J. M. Wallace and R. C. Francis
        1997, A Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation with impacts on
        salmon production  Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 78,
        1069-1079
    (5) H. J. Freelnad, G. Gatien, A. Huyer,  and R. L. Smith 2003, Cold
        halocline in the northern California Current: An invasion of subarctic
        water. Geophysical Research Letters 30: 10.1029/2002GL016663.
    (6) I. V. Polyakov, G.V. Alekseev, R.V. Bekryaev,U.  Bhatt, R.L. Colony,
        M. A. Johnson, V.P. Karklin, A.P. Makshtas, D. Walsh, A. V. Yulin
        2002, Observationally based assessment of polar amplification of
        global warming.  Geophysical Research Letters 29:
        10.1029/2001GL011111.
    (7) R. Przybylak  2002,  Changes in seasonal and annual high-frequency air
        temperature variability in the Arctic from 1951-1990,  International
        Journal of Climatology 22, 1017-1032

Climate report counters alarmist hearings

by William Yeatman on November 15, 2004

in Politics

On the occasion of yet another congressional hearing featuring alarmist predictions of future climate disaster, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has released a study on the state of the global warming debate. Today Senate Commerce Committee chairman John McCain (R-AZ) will hold a hearing on the misleading and unbalanced Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report. CEI’s study, Launching the Counter-Offensive: A Sensible Sense of Congress Resolution on Climate Change, by Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis, Jr., refutes many of the faulty assumptions from the Impact Assessment and similar climate studies.

 



The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, despite its recent release, has already generated analysis pointing out numerous flaws and distortions.  Widely accepted data records show Arctic temperatures that are roughly the same as in the 1930s and part of a slight cooling trend over the last few thousands years, and that the Greenland ice sheet is also cooling, all in opposition to the unsourced data sets contained in the Assessment.


 


Launching the Counteroffensive takes on the misleading Arctic scenarios: As for the Arctic Sea, satellite photos show that ice cover has contracted since 1979, a period when the region warmed. However, the Arctic has not warmed faster than the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, contrary to what we would expect if the polar warming were due to an intensification of the greenhouse effect, writes Lewis. Moreover, the Arctic was warmer during the late 1930s and early 1940s, before the rapid rise in CO2 levels, than it is today. For all we knowsatellite photography did not exist 65 years agothe Arctic then looked pretty much as it does now.


 


In order to generate the predictions of massive dislocation and disaster in the Arctic, the authors of the Impact Assessment had to use warming scenarios from a previous report the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes Third Assessment Report which scientists and economists consider extreme and among the least likely to actually come to pass.  Even the evidence for one of its most widely cited predictions, that polar bears may become extinct due to regional warming, is actually consistent with a larger population of bears competing for a naturally limited food supply.

“Global warming” at a glance: October 2004

by William Yeatman on November 14, 2004

in Science

MSU1278-1004.gif (23586 bytes) As determined by NOAA Satellite-mounted MSUs
Information from Global Hydrology and Climate Center,
University of Alabama – Huntsville, USA
The data from which the graph is derived can be downloaded here
Global Mean Temperature Variance From Average,
Lower Troposphere, October 2004: +0.239C
(Northern Hemisphere: +0.246C , Southern Hemisphere: +0.232C )
Peak recorded: +0.746C April 1998.
Current change relative to peak recorded: -0.507C

GISS1278-1004.gif (28491 bytes) GISTEMP Anomaly October 2004 +0.73C .
Peak recorded: +0.97C February 1998.
Current change relative to peak recorded: -0.24C

Discrepancy between GHCC MSU & GISTEMP October 2004: 0.491C

Best estimate for absolute global mean for 1951-1980 is 14C (57.2F)
Estimated absolute global mean October 2004 14.73C (58.51F)

CompareDatasets.gif (26406 bytes) Datasets – what’s the diff?

The question often arises as to why we are so particular about specifying datasets, skeptical of some while more tolerant of others – perhaps this will help. Plotted on the graph linked via the adjacent thumbnail are four temperature anomaly tracks: GISTEMP near-surface; MSU lower-troposphere (a.k.a. “satellite”) – both as noted and linked above; Radiosonde “balloon” 850-300 mb (approx 1,000-10,000mtrs) from J. K. Angell, NOAA Air Resources Laboratory, September 2004 and; NCDC Sea Surface Temps. NOTE THAT THESE TRACKS HAVE BEEN ‘COMMUNIZED’ (ADJUSTED TO ZERO AS A BASELINE 1979).


Supplemental Nov. 15: Click here for an alternate representation showing trend lines – note well that the trend lines are also zero-anchored.

Because you asked (repeatedly): ‘Communized’ I wrote and ‘communized’ I meant – as in: “To subject to public ownership or control.” Why? Because each dataset has been subjected to central planning and arbitrarily adjusted to meet a zero commencement value beginning 1979. Without mentioning any names (to protect mono-browed conspiracy theorists), no, so-adjusting entire series does not alter the trend demonstrated in any given series – click here for a chart of the original and adjusted GISTEMP annual means with [gasp!] parallel trend lines.

For individual (unadjusted) tracks and trends, beginning with the well-mixed atmosphere where enhanced greenhouse should theoretically manifest itself, click here: Radiosonde Balloon; Microwave Sounding Unit; Sea Surface Temp.; GISTEMP Near-Surface. — Ed. Nov. 15


While all these techniques of ‘taking the Earth’s temperature’ are in rough synch the anomalies are common only during El Nio-driven temperature peaks (most obvious in 1998). Most reactive (and least far from its 1958-1977 average baseline) is the radiosonde track, our physical measure of the well-mixed atmosphere at +0.11C – not global but dispersed and less subject to local corrupting influences than are near-surface measures. In ascending order of anomaly we have the MSU track, with near-global coverage it indicates approximately +0.01C/year increment (+0.248C from 20 year average over 25 years) and is least subject local disturbances. Then we have the sea surface measures at +0.3C – useful for short-term meteorology but quite subject to varied wind influences (rapid diurnal warming at surface when becalmed, evaporative cooling… and all at very shallow depths (millimeters) – current satellite-mounted infrared sensors do give coarse information suitable for weather forecasting but are little better than the old ‘bucket over the side and dunk the thermometer’ data gathering of 50 years ago. At the top of the anomaly range and galloping away from the field we have the near-surface amalgam indicating +0.506C (from 1951-1980 mean). That these sets measure anomalies from different baselines is irrelevant since we are only interested in the cumulative variance since 1979.

So, four datasets, four different answers, although all in the positive range. Our two measures of the well-mixed atmosphere indicate some warming, which could lead to as much as +1C temperature increment over a century if the trend were to continue (not very worrying). While a little rudimentary and not well suited to measuring subtle climatic trends the sea surface temps roughly concur with the MSU set. And then we have our anomalous near-surface set, beset by problems of increasing urbanization of data collection, urban heat island effect and a growing disparity with data collected with the other measuring techniques indicating an increasing rate of warming.

Is the world heating unnaturally? Depends on which data you look at and what weight you give it, doesn’t it? We highlight the MSU data because we believe it the most reliable.

Probably anti-housewarming, too

by William Yeatman on November 13, 2004

in Politics

It’s not often that a Washington lobbyist gets to be the focus of a censure motion in the British House of Commons, but anti-global warming lobbyist Myron Ebell managed that trick earlier this month.

Seems Ebell, interviewed Nov. 3 on BBC Radio, said: “We have people who know nothing about climate science, like Sir David King, your chief scientific adviser, who are alarmist and continually promote this ridiculous claim. Sir David has no expertise in climate science.”


One newspaper reported the shot and described Ebell, who works for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, as “one of President George Bush‘s top climate change advisers.”


Next thing you know there’s a censure move in the House of Commons, saying it “deplores in the strongest possible terms the unfounded and insulting criticism of Sir David King, the Government’s Chief Scientist, by Myron Ebell, an adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush, on climate change; notes that Mr. Ebell is Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, an organization funded by, amongst others, ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute; fervently hopes that Mr. Ebell’s comments do not represent official U.S. policy.”


Well, not precisely.

Polar bear scare on thin ice

by William Yeatman on November 11, 2004

in Politics, Science

Global warming could cause polar bears to go extinct by the end of the century by eroding the sea ice that sustains them, is the dire warning contained in a new report from an international group of “researchers” called the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment.


Im not quite sure what the future holds for polar bears, but it doesnt appear that any alleged manmade global warming has anything to do with it.


The report, entitled Impacts of a Warming Arctic, pretty much debunks itself on page 23 in the graph labeled, Observed Arctic Temperature, 1900 to Present.


The graph shows that Arctic temperatures fluctuate naturally in regular cycles that are roughly 40 years long. The Arctic seems currently to be undergoing a warming phase similar to one experienced between 1920-1950 which will likely be followed by a cooling phase similar to the one experienced between 1950-1990.


The reports claim that increased manmade emissions of greenhouse gasesare causing Arctic temperatures to rise is debunked by the same graph, which indicates that the near surface Arctic air temperature was higher around 1940 than now, despite all the greenhouse gas emissions since that time.


Also self-debunking is the reports statement, Since the start of the industrial revolution, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has increased by about 35 percent and the global average temperature has risen by about 0.6 degrees Centigrade.


So despite all the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity over a period of 200 years were supposed to worry, and even panic, about a measly 0.6 degree Centrigrade rise in average global temperature during that time?


Even if such a slight temperature change could credibly be estimated, it would seem to be well within the natural variation in average global temperature, which in the case of the Arctic, for example, is a range of about 3 degrees Centigrade. Remember, global climate isnt static its always either cooling or warming.


Even though manmade greenhouse gas emissions and warmer temperatures dont seem to be a problem in the Arctic according to their own data, the researchers nevertheless blamed them for causing supposed 15 percent declines in both the average weight of adult polar bears and number of cubs born between 1981 and 1998 in the Hudson Bay region.


The 1999 study in the science journal Arctic that first reported apparent problems among the Hudson Bay polar bear population suggested that their condition may be related to the earlier seasonal break-up of sea ice on western Hudson Bay a phenomenon that seems to correlate with the 1950-1990 Arctic warm-up. But, as mention previously, the 1950-1990 Arctic warming period seems to be part of a natural cycle and not due to manmade emissions of greenhouse gases.


Moreover, the notion of a declining polar bear population doesnt square well available information.


A Canadian Press Newswire story earlier this year reported that, in three Arctic villages, polar bears are so abundant theres a public safety issue. The local polar bear population reportedly increased from about 2,100 in 1997 to as many as 2,600 in 2004. Inuit hunters and international agreements since 1972.


The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report has spurred a new round of calls for a clamp-down on carbon dioxide emissions. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., told the Associated Press that the dire consequences of warming in the Arctic underscore the need for their proposal to require U.S. cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases.


Fortunately their call will likely get a chilly response from President Bush, who reiterated through a spokesman last weekend that he continues to oppose the international global warming treaty known as the Kyoto Protocol.


Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the author of “Junk Science Judo: Self-Defense Against Health Scares and Scams” (Cato Institute, 2001).

Air Board’s greenhouse rule: Raw deal for dealers

by William Yeatman on November 11, 2004

in Politics, Science

On September 24, Californias Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted a plan to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new cars and trucks starting in 2009. To sell cars in California, automakers will have to reduce fleet average GHG emissions by 22 percent in 2012 and 30 percent in 2016. CARBs rulemaking is a raw deal for auto dealers in California and any other state that mimics Californias plan.


 


Unscientific. To justify its rule, CARB cites the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (IPCC) scary forecast of a 2.5F to 10.4F warming over the next 100 years. However, the IPCC forecast is junk science. The IPCCs warming estimates presuppose ridiculous economic growth rates in developing countries (i.e., most of the world). For example, even the IPCCs low-end (2.5F) forecast assumes that underachievers like North Korea, Libya, and Argentina grow so rapidly their per capita incomes will surpass U.S. per capita income in 2100! CARBs rule has no credible scientific rationale.


 


Unlawful. California Assembly Bill 1493, the enabling legislation, directs CARB to achieve maximum feasible emission reductions. However, CARB cannot do so without forcing automakers to increase the average fuel economy of their fleets. Unsurprisingly, CARBs list of recommended GHG-reducing technologies closely matches the National Research Councils inventory of fuel economy-enhancing technologies. Yet the federal Energy Conservation and Policy Act prohibits states from enacting laws or regulations related to fuel economya prohibition necessary to ensure economies of scale and a competitive U.S. auto industry. CARB will surely be challenged in court.


 


Unaffordable. AB 1493 also stipulates that CARBs plan must be cost effective. CARB claims that fuel savings from the technologies automakers deploy to reduce emissions will substantially exceed the increase in vehicle sticker price. Of course, this is a tacit confession that the rule is a de facto fuel economy program.


 


Sierra Research, Inc., in a report written for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, finds multiple problems in CARBs cost-effectiveness calculation. CARB inflated vehicle costs in the 2009 baseline (no regulation) case by assuming general adoption of expensive technologies such as 5- and 6-speed automatic transmissions. CARB knocked down by 30 percent its own contract researchers cost estimates based on nothing more specific than staffs experience and the potential for unforeseen innovations. CARB assumed that consumers benefit from fuel savings years after most cars are sold or scrapped.


 


Whereas CARB projects a net lifetime consumer saving of $1,703, Sierra estimates a net loss of $3,357. The rule will reduce vehicle sales and put the brakes on the chief source of air quality improvementreplacement of older vehicles with newer, cleaner models. CARBs rule is bad for the environment!


 


Raw Deal. If implemented, CARBs plan will hammer California auto dealers. The rule applies to automakers, not auto owners or operators. Unless CARB is prepared to build a wall around California, it cannot stop people from importing less regulated, more affordable cars from out of state.


 


Dealers elsewhere would be unwise to celebrate, however, because California is a trend setter. Any state that adopts Californias rule (seven Northeast states may do so) will similarly hobble its auto dealerships.    


 


Marlo Lewis


Senior Fellow, Environmental Policy


Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C

Cooling Blair’s climate crusade

by William Yeatman on November 10, 2004

in Science

Tony Blair is, in a way, as polarizing a figure in the United Kingdom as President George W. Bush is in the United Stateswith one crucial difference.  While President Bush has his Republican critics, he incurs nothing like the venomous hatred hurled at Blair from the left wing of his own Labor Party, a party he has led to successive landslide election victories.


 


Americans may be about to see why. Blair, having been the president’s chief ally in Iraq, may soon become his chief antagonist over the issue of climate changeand his likely tactics will cause his supposed friends no end of pain.


 


The Labor left wing’s disdain for Blair is based as much on style as on policy — a style of which Americans would be wise to be wary.


 


Blair’s world view has been described as “messianic.”  After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, he became convinced that the world needed to change for the better, by force if necessary.  In an extraordinary and in many ways brilliant speech to his party conference in October 2001which he wrote himselfthe prime minister sang the virtues of liberal interventionism. He praised intervention in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, regretted inaction in Rwanda, and warned against letting crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe to go unabated. 


 


No objections or other considerations may interfere when Blair is in messianic mode.  Consider his support of President Bush’s plans to liberate Iraq.  It was for Blair, quite simply, the right thing to do. But now reports from various government inquiries show that Blair’s office ignored or overrode legitimate questions over the quality of the intelligence he was receiving. The prime minister, having convinced himself that Saddam Hussein not only possessed weapons of mass destruction, argued that Saddam was capable of launching them against British interests at a mere 45 minutes’ notice.  It was on the basis of this questionable claimthat Saddam was an imminent threat, as opposed to the American contention that Saddam should be disarmed before he became an imminent threatthat the British Parliament backed the use of military force in Iraq.


 


Similar things have happened with Blair’s domestic policies. The Blair government, convinced that the House of Lords was an unjustifiable anachronism, decided that the revered old institution had to go. The government ignored the peers’ principled objections, and only a last-minute compromise kept 1,000 years’ worth of history and tradition from being swept away. Recently, Blair decided to ban foxhunting as uncivilized, despite the almost unanimous opposition from country dwellers that led to the largest anti-government demonstration in British history.


 


The latest target of the prime minister’s messianic gaze is climate change.  He has been convinced by his chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, a chemist by training, that global warming is the greatest long-term danger facing the planet. Blair has announced that, along with Africa, global warming will be the focus of Britain‘s presiding roles over the Group of Eight (G8) and European Union this year. As with the Iraqi intelligence, the Blair government has ignored troublesome but legitimate questions in making this decision.


 


During his visit to Washington this week, the prime minister will likely strongly pressure the president to acknowledge the supposed problem of global warming and to commit America to do something about it beyond current policies. He has already committed Britain to reducing greenhouse gas emissions well below the targets demanded by the Kyoto Protocol, despite the fact that independent experts say his vision of a hydrogen economy will require covering an area the size of Wales in wind turbines. What he will demand of America is anyone’s guess; in his recent speech, he stopped short of calling on the United States to ratify Kyoto, but Russia‘s politically motivated ratification of the treaty may breathe new life into that futile process.


 


Blair will certainly pitch this in moral terms, deploying the sermonizing style that led satirical magazine Private Eye to portray him as a busybody Anglican priest. Blair probably won’t refer directly to Americans’ sinful love of “unhealthy” fast food and gas-guzzling SUVs, but he will likely seek to make Americans feel guilty for consuming a quarter of the world’s resources while having such a small fraction of the world’s population (an argument his close Parliamentary ally Stephen Byers uses frequently).


 


Such moral hectoring must be met with moral arguments. When Blair asks America to restrict its greenhouse gas emissions, American policy makers should respond that he is calling for more unemployment, higher heating prices for the elderly and reduced aid to developing countriesand that he is calling for all of this on the basis of projections that have little basis in reality.  In the run up to the Iraq war, Blair’s anti-war critics accused his government of “sexing up” its findings on Iraq to increase their impacta criticism that seems even more apt to describe Sir David King’s alarmist pronouncements that global warming is worse than terrorism.


 


While recognizing the immense value of Tony Blair’s support in the war on terror, the newly re-elected Bush administration should respond resolutely to any attempts to get the United States to change course on climate policy. This will require a firm diplomatic hand and a steadfast refusal to compromise settled policy. In short, the administration should act just like Blair in rebuffing his global warming entreaties.

The Kyoto climate debate: Overview of the state of play

by William Yeatman on November 9, 2004

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics

[Full study available as a pdf.]


 


 


Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) likens his push for another vote on the Climate Stewardship Act (S. 139), which the Senate rejected 55 to 43 in October of last year, to his seven-year crusade to limit campaign fundraising and political advertising: Its an old strategy of mine, he said. Force votes on the issues. Ultimately, we will win. [[i]] Or, ultimately, he will lose. But this much is undeniable: McCain, chief co-sponsor Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), and their advocacy group allies are on offense. They aggressively seek opportunities to publicize their message, expand their support base, and advance their agenda.


 


The same aggressive approach characterizes the climate alarmist camp generally. At home and abroad, in courts and legislatures, in the media and regulatory bodies, alarmists are on the attack:


 


         Environmental activist groups endlessly lambaste President Bush for withdrawing the United States from the Kyoto global warming treaty. [[ii]]


         The British Governments Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir David King, in an attempt to influence U.S. policy, called climate change the most severe problem that we are facing todaymore serious even than the threat of terrorism. [[iii]]


         European Union politicians relentlessly pressed Russian leaders to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. [[iv]]


         Twelve state attorneys general (AGs), 14 advocacy groups, and three cities are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for rejecting a petition to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from motor vehicles. [[v]]


         State legislators introduced at least 60 bills in 2004 proposing some form of CO2 regulation. [[vi]]


         New York Governor George Pataki and nine other Northeastern governors plan to cap CO2 emissions from their states electric power sector. [[vii]]


         Six New England governors formed a compact with five Eastern Canadian Premiers to reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 and 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. [[viii]]  


         The California Air Resources Board approved its plan to implement AB 1493, a state law mandating maximum feasible reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles. [[ix]]


         The AGs of seven states plus the New York City corporation counsel are suing Americas five largest electric power producers to require each company to cap its CO2 emissions and then reduce them by a specified percentage annually for at least a decade. [[x]]


         The National Academy of Sciences published a study predicting apocalyptic climate impacts in California, such as an 8.3C (14.1F) increase in average summertime temperatures by 2100, unless urgent action is taken to reduce emissions. [[xi]] The NAS published the study even though its dire forecasts derive from discredited emissions scenarios [[xii]] and a climate model (the U.K. Met office Hadley Centre model) found to be incapable of replicating past U.S. temperature trends regardless of the averaging period used (five-year, 10-year, or 25-year). [[xiii]]


         The Sydney Centre for International and Global Law published a report arguing that Australia has a legal obligation, under the 1972 World Heritage Convention, to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and, indeed, to cut greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 60 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. [[xiv]]


 


Despite this surge of activism, alarmists have scored few if any victories at the national level:


 


         Senate leaders kept climate language out of the Senate energy bill. [[xv]]


         As already noted, the Senate rejected the McCain-Lieberman bill. Despite pro-Kyoto activists high-profile efforts to depict President Bush as an environmental criminal, [[xvi]] the environment was not a key issue in the November 2004 elections, and the Senate lost four supporters of McCain-LiebermanTom Daschle (D-SD), John Edwards (D-NC), Bob Graham (D-Fla.), and Ernest Hollings (D-SC). In the House, legislation of the McCain-Lieberman variety has no chance of passing or even of coming to a vote.


         Kyoto remains in such disfavor with most Americans that the Democratic Partys 2004 platformin sharp contrast to the partys 2000 platformdid not even mention the climate treaty negotiated by former standard-bearer Al Gore.


 


         The Bush Administration backed away from its proposal to award Kyoto-type emission credits to companies registering voluntary greenhouse gas emission reductions. [[xvii]]


         When EPA rejected the petition to regulate CO2 emissions from motor vehicles, it also disavowed, as no longer representing the agencys views, statements by Clinton administration officials claiming authority under the Clean Air Act to adopt regulatory climate policies. [[xviii]]


 


Supporters of pro-growth energy policy have, in short, done a reasonably good job of fending off several major thrusts by climate alarmists during the past 18 months. However, in politics, as in war, staying permanently on defense rarely leads to victory. A purely defensive posture cedes the initiative to ones opponents, allowing the other team to generate the headlines, capture the public imagination, and frame the terms of debate.


 


The battle over climate policy is a protracted struggle. To win it, the friends of economic liberty, scientific inquiry, and affordable energy must advance their own vision and compel alarmists to react to it. Taking a leaf out of McCains playbook, they should introduce their own Sense of Congress resolution on climate change, recruit co-sponsors, and force votes on the bill, year after year, until it passes.


 


What kinds of information and ideas should a sensible climate bill include? Read on.


 


 







[i] McCain/Lieberman still fighting for climate amendment floor time, Energy & Environment Daily, July 7, 2004.



[ii] In reality, Bush did no such thing. The United States continues to send official representatives to the Kyoto negotiations, and the President has not renounced Americas signature on the treaty.



[iii] King, D. A. 2004. Climate Change Science: Adapt, Mitigate, Ignore?  Science 303: 176-177.



[iv] Brian Stempeck, Pressure to ratify Kyoto is undeclared war against Russia, official says, Greenwire, July 19, 2004.



[v] Brian Stempeck, Attorneys general outline argument in major CO2 litigation, Greenwire, June 23, 2004.



[vi] American Legislative Exchange Council, Sons of Kyoto: 2004 Summary of Greenhouse Gas Legislation in the States, June 2, 2004.



[vii] States take independent action on clean air plans, Greenwire, July 8, 2004.



[viii] New England Governors/Eastern Canadian Premiers, Climate Change Action Plan 2001, August 2001, http://www.negc.org/documents/NEG-ECP%20CCAP.PDF.



[ix] California Air Resources Board, Climate Change, September 24, 2004, http://www.arb.ca.gov/regact/grnhsgas/grnhsgas.htm. 



[x] Brian Stempeck, States lawsuit demands utilities reduce CO2 emissions 3 percent per year, Greenwire, July 22, 2004.



[xi] Hayhoe, K., et al. 2004. Emissions pathways, climate change, and impacts on California. PNAS   vol. 101, no. 34: 12422-12427.



[xii] See finding (17).



[xiii] Testimony of Patrick Michaels, The U.S. National Climate Change Assessment: Do the Climate Models Project a Useful Picture of Regional Climate? House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, July 25, 2002.



[xiv] Sydney Centre for International and Global Law, Global Climate Change and the Great Barrier Reef: Australias Obligations under the World Heritage Convention, September 21, 2004, http://www.law.usyd.edu.au/scigl/SCIGLFinalReport21_09_04.pdf.



[xv] Darren Samuelsohn, Domenici drops climate change title until floor debate, Energy & Environment Daily, April 10, 2003.



[xvi] Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and his Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Democracy (New York: HarperCollins, 2004).



[xvii] Marty Coyne, Bush administration backs away from GHG credits, Greenwire, December 3, 2003.



[xviii] Memorandum of Robert E. Frabricant, General Counsel, to Marianne L. Horinko, Acting Administrator, EPAs Authority to Impose Mandatory Controls to Address Global Climate Change under the Clean Air Act, August 28, 2003.

Russia takes “final” step, again, but not really

by William Yeatman on November 4, 2004

in Politics

For the third time in a month and fifth time in just over two years, media are breathless with Russia‘s purported ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. 

While this act seems likely to ultimately consummate as soon even as next spring, Russia continues to withhold what is in fact the only relevant step in determining whether it ratifies the “global warming” treaty covering about 35 countries.

That step is submission of Russia‘s instrument of ratification to the United Nations’ office in Bonn, which is the sole Russian act which can bring the treaty in effect.  Recently, “ratification” has been hailed with each internally meaningful, but internationally meaningless, individual step of Putin “approving” the 1997 treaty, the Duma voting in favor, the Federal Council voting in favor, and Putin signing the voted-upon act.  Previously, even passing comments prompted news articles declaring Kyoto‘s birth (e.g., August 2002).

Very soon all expect Russia to submit its ratification, an event which will prompt another in a series of increasingly self-parodying news articles declaring Kyoto in effect.  This will be followed by an identical spate of stories changing only minor details, 90 days later (according to the treaty’s terms), hailing for (it is hoped) the final time that Russia has brought the ailing treaty into effect.

At that point, however, Europe must face what it has created:  a selective treaty with which only 2 of the EU-15 will comply, leaving all EU countries by the agreement’s terms to fend for their own commitment or face sanction.  Given that certain countries, e.g., Spain, are so far over their agreed ration that compliance is beyond fantastic, this will likely prompt a collision between the cities Kyoto and Lisbon. 

Both agreements bearing these names have remained fictional, though one is about to at minimum come into force while the other appears ever smaller in the rear view mirror of the EU’s rather sputtering economic vehicle.

Negotiations over certain Kyoto details resume in Buenos Aires in December, though the first formal “Meeting of the Parties”at which the details of what exactly has been “agreed” are to be hammered outwill not occur until approximately one year later.

Even the BBC now acknowledges Russia‘s apparent agreement was in return for EU acquiescence to Russia‘s WTO membership (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3985669.stm).  The U.S. made clearas did both of its major candidates for presidentthat Kyoto is not the answer and that, having refused to ratify Kyoto, it is now certain to continue on its own path of reducing “greenhouse gas intensity”.

With the EU out of compliance, amid continued Russian expressions of concern over what energy emission rationing will do to its recovering economy, and the bulk of the world’s countriesand emissionsremaining happily and steadfastly exempt, the idea of Kyoto as written succeeding even if it goes into effect seems a pipe dream.

These realities make upcoming Kyoto negotiations important, but the real game is now how the EU addresses both its conflict between Kyoto promises and Lisbon‘s failure, and how it will address most of the world rejecting Kyoto‘s restrictions.

The One-Percent Solution

by William Yeatman on November 2, 2004

in Science

Many of the scientific papers that have contributed to global warming alarmism over recent weeks (such as the study that predicted the ruin of Californias wine industry or the more recent study predicting stronger hurricanes by 2080) have depended on models that assume atmospheric increases of carbon dioxide concentrations by one percent per year from 1990 to the end of the century.


This assumption is not backed up by the evidence, which has seen concentration increase by only 0.4 percent per year since 1990. University of Virginia climatologist Patrick Michaels drew attention to this problem in a Cato Institute op-ed published on October 6 (“Debunking the Latest Hurricane Hype,” available at www.cato.org).


He commented, “Because carbon dioxide increases have been bouncing around four-tenths of a percent per year for three decades, why do climate modelers insist on using the wrong number? It seems peculiar that people who have the equivalent of doctorates in applied physics (which is what climate science is) would somehow be perfectly happy to do something they know is wrong.


“I began asking that question at scientific meetings a decade ago. At that time, I asked Kevin Trenberth, a highly visible atmospheric scientist from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, who often testifies to Congress on climate issues. He told me it was done because it was convention. That answer doesnt set well with me, because its awfully easy to program a computer to increase a variable by half a percent instead of 1 percent per year.


“That leads to the final, nagging question. There are literally hundreds of scientific papers out there in which climate models use this wrong number. Each of those papers gets sent to three outside peer-reviewers. The fact that 1 percent continues to be used only means one thing: when it comes to global warming, hundreds of scientists must prefer convention to truth.”

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