Science

Michael Crichton takes a novel approach to global warming alarmism

by William Yeatman on December 20, 2004

in Politics, Science

Michael Crichton’s new blockbuster novel, State of Fear, begins with sex, violence, and oceanography. It’s that sort of book all the way through, mixing the usual adventure novel clichs of beautiful young heroes, indestructible secret agents, and a plot to kill millions alongside hard science, including graphs, footnotes, and words like “aminostratigraphy.” As such, the book is half a rip-roaring roller coaster of a read (as Edmund Blackadder would put it) and half didactic tract. It is a testament to Crichton’s skill as a novelist that he pulls it off. This is definitely one for the Christmas list.

The adventure centers on a conspiracy to accentuate natural disasters in order to keep the developed world in the state of fear of the title. One particular environmental charity stands to benefit most from this state, and the main plot device is the dawning realization by an idealistic young lawyer named Peter Evans that the cause he believed in for so long is rotten to the core. His Virgil as he wanders through hell to achieve salvation is an almost superhuman character, John Kenner, who is a strange blend of academic physicist, Jack Ryan, James Bond, and, erm, John Graham, real-life director of the Office of Management and Budget (I said it was strange in a former job, Graham was director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, and Kenner directs a similar organization at MIT).

Together, and with the help of the usual beautiful-but-tough woman and a tech-savvy Gurkha, they are placed in danger in the wilds of Antarctica, a state park in Arizona, and in a cannibal-infested jungle in the Solomon Islands. They face blizzards, bullets, lightning, poisonous octopuses and insufferable Hollywood celebrities. There is no peril so great that Evans and his friends do not face it. Their adventures unfold at a breakneck pace that keeps you turning the page, and it is in the brief downtimes between these escapades that Crichton expounds his scientific case.

This didacticism is directed primarily at global-warming alarmism, which Crichton thinks is overblown (he goes over the case in an appendix). Yet Crichton does not, as some have alleged, criticize the science underlying global-warming alarmism. In fact, he argues from it; as well he should science is what it is. Instead, it is the use to which the science is put that Crichton argues against most forcefully. The science, by itself, does not argue that the world must take certain actions now. Science can never be prescriptive. All it can do is raise issues for the world’s attention. It is politics and economics that then decide what to do about them. People who argue that the science says we must do something are being disingenuous about their true motives. If those people are also scientists, then they are abusing science. This is a tremendously important point.

If there is one scientific exercise Crichton does criticize, it is the use of global-climate models. These models are the basis of the alarming estimates of future temperature rise, yet at their very base they are only partly scientific. Models are a hybrid of science and economics. If science says that a rise in atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations will have certain effects on climate, then it can tell us nothing about the future until economic projections of energy use are fed into it. A scientific model without good economic input is useless, and we have been aware for quite some time that the economic scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are seriously deficient. It is a shame that Crichton makes one of his few factual slips when he says that NASA’s James Hansen overestimated future emissions when he brought the global-warming issue to the world’s attention before Congress in 1988. In fact, Hansen had a range of scenarios, and actual emissions have followed the lower trajectory quite well (and Hansen has updated his projections, now estimating a very small temperature rise by 2050 of around 0.5C.) Crichton would have done better to take aim at the IPCC here.

Yet, more widely, the novel raises stinging criticisms of the way the environmental movement conducts itself. Its mutual infatuation with Hollywood, its preoccupation with litigation, and, above all, its preoccupation with obtaining more money so as to continue its privileged existence are all writ large in the text. One of the chief villains, a lawyer turned green-group director, regularly rages about the difficulties he has fundraising. His main problem, he rants, is that global warming is not the immediate threat that pollution was in the 70s. It is therefore harder to get people to give money to combat it, something that can be solved if people come to believe that the climate is changing now. These are, of course, tactics the real-life environmental movement has embraced, arguing, for instance, that the recent hurricane season was exacerbated by global warming rather than being sheer bad luck. During one of his rants, that character also, delightfully, called my organization, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, “Neanderthals.” This was tremendously gratifying.

In the conclusion of the novel (which seems as if it is ready for a sequel there are a surprising number of loose ends not tied up), Crichton has a former alarmist conclude that there are serious things wrong with the environmental movement:

Face the facts, all these environmental organizations are thirty, forty, fifty years old. They have big buildings, big obligations, big staffs. They may trade on their youthful dreams, but the truth is, they’re now part of the establishment. And the establishment works to preserve the status quo. It just does.

(Interestingly, these comments echo those made by some committed alarmists recently in an essay entitled, The Death of Environmentalism.) If Jefferson was right about continual revolution being a good thing, then the environmental movement would do well to take heed.

He also has some very interesting suggestions for getting politics out of science by making the researchers more distant from their funders, to the point of blinding them to the source. As Crichton implies, this would strengthen the science against accusations that it is done to benefit the funders, whether they be industry, government, or activist group. This is something that requires serious attention from science itself.

Doubtless much of this scholarly discussion will be removed when the inevitable movie is made, but the exhilarating plot should still make it a success (and it will be streets ahead of the scientifically bereft turkey The Day After Tomorrow).

Me, I’m waiting for the video game.

Kyoto controversy continues

by William Yeatman on December 16, 2004

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics, Science

The international global warming worry-wart community is meeting in Buenos Aires this week to figure out how to get the U.S. to participate in the global economic suicide pact known as the Kyoto Protocol.

Russias recent ratification of the Protocol allows the treaty become effective in February 2005 though it’s pretty widely known that Russia only signed on in exchange for European support of Russias admission to the World Trade Organization, not because President Putin frets about a less frigid Siberia.

The treaty will nevertheless be a meaningless gesture without U.S. participation not only is the U.S. the largest energy consumer, but the real purpose of the treaty is to hamper the U.S. economy, to Europes advantage, by rationing American energy use.

Although the U.S. Senate, in 1997, and President Bush, in 2001, wisely rejected U.S. participation in the Kyoto Protocol, there are worrisome efforts in the Senate and White House to do something on global warming.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.both dyed-in-the-wool global warming worriers have introduced legislation to impose mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

While President Bushs recent public statements seem to indicate that he may also be falling for global warming junk science so far, hes only for voluntary cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as well as technology-based solutions.

President Bush is also being pressured by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to do something on climate. As Mr. Blair has been a major supporter of President Bushs effort in Iraq, its possible that Blair may have chits to call in.

Peruvian Plants Debunk Kyoto

Despite the anxiety-fest in Buenos Aires, the real global warming news this week comes from the Peruvian glaciers.

Ohio State University glaciologist Lonnie Thompson reported at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union that he found two prehistoric plant beds dating back 5,000 and 50,000 years, respectively, near a high Andean glacier. The plants’ ages were pinpointed through carbon dating; until recently, the plants had been covered by ice.

Climate clamor-ers, upon hearing such news, will likely jump to the conclusion that the receding glaciers, which revealed the plants after covering them for thousands of years, are simply more evidence of manmade global warming.

But a more thoughtful person might point out the plant find is a strong indication that, thousands of years ago, the high Andean climate must have been warm enough to cause the glacier to be recessed and to allow for the plants to grow in the first place a time frame that obviously predates oil and gas companies, the internal combustion engine, the industrial revolution, and recorded history.

So neither the warm climate that sustained high Andean plant growth 5,000 years ago, nor the subsequent frigid climate that caused the glacierization, could possibly have been caused by human activity.

So if natural forces caused those climate changes, isnt it reasonable to conclude that perhaps natural forces might also be largely responsible for whatever climate changes may be occurring now?

Any prudent person would agree that we dont yet understand the complexities with the climate system, said Thompson. Its too bad he didnt deliver that message in Buenos Aires.

Polar bear scare: Now I get it!

by William Yeatman on December 15, 2004

in Politics, Science

Last month the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment issued a report predicting the extinction of polar bears and other Arctic-related calamities supposedly caused by the dreaded global warming. At the time, I didn’t understand what the big deal was since, among other things, the claims in the report weren’t new — for example, the data underlying the polar bear scare had been published in 1999! But an article in today’s New York Times cleared up my confusion.

Inuit leaders announced today at the COP-10 meeting in Buenos Aires that they will seek a ruling from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (an arm of the Organization of American States) that the U.S. is threatening their existence by contributing to global warming. The Inuit plan is to sue either the U.S. in international court or U.S. companies in federal court for damages allegedly due to global warming. The Inuits hope to get from the Commission a declaration that the U.S. has violated the Inuit’s rights.

According to the Times, experts say the Inuit petition “could have decent prospects” since recent studies (read last month’s Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report) have concluded that greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to “big environmental changes in the Arctic.”

The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report, then, was really all about laying the groundwork for the Inuits to sue the U.S. and U.S. companies! Moreover, U.S. taxpayers paid for the report, which will now be used as a basis to sue us!

Where’s the party?

by William Yeatman on December 15, 2004

in Science

Preliminary data indicate 2004 likely will register as the fourth-warmest year in the worlds surface temperature record. Yet despite all the gloom-and-doom scenarios, we havent experienced an all-time record-setter since the big El Nio back in 1998. Our planet may be warming, but not at a torrid clip.

     If global climate really were to respond the way climate models project it should, the warmest year on record would be announced every other year or so after natural variation in annual average temperatures was factored in. But the warmest year designation only is proclaimed every five years or so. At that frequency, earths climate appears to be warming at a rate somewhere near the low end of the range of estimates hypothesized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC projects a temperature rise somewhere between 1.4C and 5.8C by 2100. The upper end of that range is a result of the IPCC researchers climate models routinely being fed extreme emissions scenarios that result in an extreme rise in global temperature.

     Another indicator that global warming is an under-achiever is that the overall warming trend since 1976 has been 0.17C per decade. Things began to warm back then after 30-plus years of cooling a trend that prompted a mid-1970s fear we were plunging into an imminent Ice Age. There is no evidence the trend since 1976 is picking up despite claims things are getting worse at an ever-increasing rate (see Figure 1). A rudimentary calculation reveals the IPCC low-end warming rate to be 0.14C per decade with its upper-end 0.58C. Obviously, we are experiencing something akin to the lower rate.

This should be cause for celebration! If we cant stop the warming no matter how hard we try (and we cant) and we are pretty much stuck with the fossil-fueled energy infrastructure we have, then we should be thankful things only appear to be warming up at a relatively slow rate. If you dont feel especially thankful and are convinced there are alternative means to energize the needs of 6.5 billion people, thats fine. We celebrate your optimism and idealism. Happy New Year!

But heres our scenario: If the past three decades are any indication (we believe they are), then earths climate will continue its modest warming. In time, human dependence on fossil fuels will run its course and well move on to other sources of energy and the environmental challenges that inevitably will accompany their use. Global average temperature will be a bit higher than now as will agricultural productivity and average human life span. So heres to realism, pragmatism, and the fourth-warmest year on record 2004!

 

Figure 1. Global average temperature anomalies (from the 1961-1990 mean) since 1976. The established warming trend is 0.17C per decade. News reports of an increasing warming trend are hogwash. (Note: We choose our terminology carefully.)

Penn State expert says global climate change likely to benefit Pennsylvania agriculture

by William Yeatman on December 13, 2004

in Science

University Park, Pa. — To date, most research associated with global climate change has focused on determining whether it really is happening, and trying to gauge how much — and how fast — average temperatures and precipitation levels will change.

But a researcher in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, in a study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the last five years, has taken a different tact. His work assumes global warming is occurring and accepts the tendency of models that predict Pennsylvania will grow slightly warmer and wetter in the not-so-distant future. His research focuses on the effect of global climate change on Pennsylvania’s agriculture, water resources and economy.

“My interest is primarily in the adaptation to climate change,” says James Shortle, distinguished professor of agricultural and environmental economics. “There are a lot of people who are worrying about modeling climate change, trying to determine to what extent it is happening and looking at influencing climate change through pollution control, but my research is much more about how we should be adjusting to what we expect is happening.”

Shortle doesn’t think there is much doubt left about global climate change. “The evidence only continues to accumulate,” he says. “Even the more credible skeptics are being converted. I had colleagues who said this is not happening, but I have seen those opinions change. People are having a hard time maintaining their skepticism of global climate change. The large societal risks cannot be ignored.”

But the effects for Pennsylvania won’t be all bad, according to research done by Shortle and his colleagues. “Climate change is likely to benefit our state’s agriculture,” he explains. “Higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should stimulate photosynthesis and raise crop yields, while crops may also benefit from additional spring and summer rainfall and warmer temperatures.”

Experts are uncertain whether climate change will enhance the Keystone State’s position in the national and international agricultural markets. If Pennsylvania’s growing conditions improve while those in other regions deteriorate, the state’s production of crops and livestock could bring higher prices.

“There are clearly a number of factors that are going to influence agriculture in Pennsylvania,” Shortle says. “My guess is that climate change will be the least significant. We need to distinguish between what’s good for farmers and what’s just good for crop production. Markets will change, and competition will affect farm profits, so we really must look at agricultural changes across the globe to determine what changes might mean to Pennsylvania.”

Factors such as environmental regulations, new agricultural technology, nutrient and water resources management, and farmland preservation are important. “Of course, if we don’t save enough farmland in Pennsylvania, future market demands won’t matter much,” Shortle says. “And pests are a wildcard in this kind of prognostication, because it may be that the same warmer, wetter weather that will boost crops also will benefit pests, and we may be dealing with more and different invasive pests than we do now.”

If, as predicted, ocean levels rise, storm surges increase and the state sees more — and more-severe — hurricanes and other storms in coming decades, Pennsylvania’s neighbors with shoreline and coastal plains, such as New Jersey and Maryland, likely will have to deal with inundation of wetlands and drastically increased beach erosion. “But the Keystone State won’t get off unscathed, and we will have to deal with much less obvious changes in our ecosystem,” Shortle says. “That’s why we are involved in risk assessment now. Pennsylvania will have to adjust to the impacts of global climate change too, but it’s harder to say what they will be.

“Changes are not likely to be radical, but we have to look simultaneously at human systems and physical systems — they cannot be separated,” Shortle adds. “Global climate change will have an impact on Pennsylvania’s economic and social systems over time.”

Sen. Lout-enberg?

by William Yeatman on December 10, 2004

in Politics, Science

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) complained to the Washington Post in a published letter (Dec. 11) that too much space was given to the views of Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in a Dec. 2 Post article on global warming. Lautenberg’s letter is below. My comments are in bold and indented.

Juliet Eilperin’s Dec. 2 news story on climate change, “Humans May Double the Risk of Heat Waves,” is the latest example of the media’s “he said, she said” treatment of what reputable scientists say is one of the greatest threats to the human race.

I dont know what Frank is referring to here. The media usually takes the side of the global warming alarmists!

Even worse, the article countered the findings of the world’s top climate scientists by quoting an oil industry-funded economist.

Myron may not be a scientist, but I cant think of too many people that know as much as he does about the science, economics and politics of the global warming controversy.

Such reporting is not credible, nor does it illuminate a subject of significant importance.

Uh, Frank, in journalistic circles, giving adequate voice to opposing sides is called balance.

The article began by citing a peer-reviewed study published in the revered scientific journal Nature, which reported that the risk has more than doubled for the type of lethal heat wave responsible for 35,000 deaths in Europe last year.

Frank may not know this, but the journal Nature doesnt really have any credibility on the global warming issue any more. It decided in the 1990s that manmade global warming was real and that it would only print studies that supported its pre-determined position. In any event, the study in question isnt really science — like most other global warming fearmongering, its computer modeling that is constructed to produce pre-determined answers. Garbage-in, garbage-out, as they say.

But the last half of the article is squandered on the views of Myron Ebell, an economist — not a climate scientist — whose “studies” at the American Enterprise Institute are funded by Exxon Mobil.

Actually, Myron is at the Competitive Enterprise Institute — a completely different organization than the American Enterprise Institute. I guess to Frank, all free-market/limited government supporters look alike! Im not quite sure why Frank is throwing stones at AEI for being supported by ExxonMobil — Frank has accepted campaign contributions from Exxon and other energy companies in the past – more than $275,000 between 1989-1996.

The article fails to mention this shameless conflict of interest.

Shooting the messenger is typical strategy of the junk science crowd. Rather than address the substance of Myrons comments, Frank chose to engage in ad hominen attack. And what about the conflict of interest among the authors of the Nature study? After all, the study authors are from the U.K.s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research — an organization that is funded by the U.K. government, whose official policy is that manmade global warming is real. Hadley is so predisposed towards global warming that it even describes the science supposedly underlying the global warming movie The Day After Tomorrow as real enough.

The problem with this type of reporting was highlighted at a recent Senate Commerce Committee hearing. Robert Correll, senior fellow at the American Meteorological Society, warned, “The trouble with a debate of this nature is you put 2,600 [scientists] against two or three or four [scientists who disagree].”

Corrells statement is misleading in two respects. First, Correll has the numbers way wrong. Most importantly, it doesnt really matter how many scientists are on one side or the other. In science, hypotheses are supported by data, not opinion polls.

Ebell is not in the same league as the qualified climate scientists who report that the climate is changing before our eyes;

Frank, climate has always been changing and always will be changing — thats the nature of climate. Im tempted to say that Franks almost old enough to remember when advancing glaciers in the 14th century announced the onset of the deadly Little Ice Age in Europe!

only the intensity and the speed of those changes are unknown.

The direction of climate change is also unknown – and for my money, Id rather that climate warm up than cool down, which is famine-inducing.

Your newspaper does an injustice to its readers by giving Ebell’s caterwauling equal weight with the widely accepted views

Widely accepted by who? Frank Lautenberg? Environmental activist groups? The liberal media?]

of reputable and unbiased scientists.

I suppose that depends on what the meaning of reputable and unbiased is!

— Frank R. Lautenberg
Washington
The writer is a Democratic senator from New Jersey.

Tell Sen. Lout-enberg what you think of his desite to censor those who dare disagree with global warming ortho-doxy.

1

“Global Warming” at a glance: November 2004

by William Yeatman on December 9, 2004

in Science

 MSU1278-1104.gif (29171 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, November 2004: +0.151C
(Northern Hemisphere: +0.292C , Southern Hemisphere: +0.010C )
Peak recorded: +0.746C April 1998. Current change relative to peak recorded: -0.595C

GISS1278-1104.gif (30202 bytes) GISTEMP Anomaly November 2004 +0.72C .
The data from which the graph is derived can be downloaded here

Peak recorded: +0.97C February 1998. Current change relative to peak recorded: -0.25C

Best estimate for absolute global mean for 1951-1980 is 14C (57.2F)
Estimated absolute global mean November 2004 14.72C (58.5F)

Discrepancy between GHCC MSU & GISTEMP November 2004: 0.569C

Carbon sink or carbon source? Aerosols play significant role in shifts

by William Yeatman on December 7, 2004

in Science

Researchers used data from six sites within NASA's AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork). Sites represented a wide variety of landscapes, including forests, cropland and grassland. This site in Walker Branch, Tenn., shows a sun photometer over a broadleaf deciduous forest. The sun photometer measures radiation and aerosol properties that impact light. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Researchers used data from six sites within NASA’s AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork). Sites represented a wide variety of landscapes, including forests, cropland and grassland. This site in Walker Branch, Tenn., shows a sun photometer over a broadleaf deciduous forest. The sun photometer measures radiation and aerosol properties that impact light.
Photo courtesy of NASA.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have shown that the amount of aerosols dust particles, soot from automobile emissions and factories, and other airborne particles in the atmosphere has a significant impact on whether the surface area below either absorbs or emits more carbon dioxide (CO2).

The researchers discovered that changes in the levels of airborne aerosols resulted in changes to the terrestrial carbon cycle, or the cycle in which CO2 is absorbed by plant photosynthesis and then emitted by the soil.

Besides documenting the effects of aerosols on the carbon cycle, the research also showed that the type of landscape also influenced whether a surface area served as a carbon sink, an area that absorbs more CO2 than it emits, or as a carbon source, an area that emits more CO2 than it absorbs. In the research project, six locations across the United States encompassing forests, croplands and grasslands were studied. Increased amounts of aerosols over forests and croplands resulted in surface areas below becoming carbon sinks, but increased amounts of aerosols over grasslands resulted in surface areas becoming carbon sources.

Dr. Dev Niyogi, research assistant professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at NC State and lead author of the study, hypothesizes that the differences among landscapes can be attributed to the amount of shade provided by tree and plant leaves in forests and croplands. The lack of shading in grasslands changes the ground surface temperature, which alters the rate of photosynthesis in plants and the CO2 emissions by soil. Since plants want to take in CO2 but also preserve water at the same time, Niyogi believes the lack of shade and increased temperatures may cause plants to slow the rate of photosynthesis, causing less CO2 to be absorbed and thus more CO2 to be effectively emitted. That would make the surface area a carbon source.

The research was published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. Niyogis co-authors on the research paper include NC State graduate student Hsin-I Chang; Dr. Vinod Saxena, professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at NC State; Dr. Randy Wells, professor of crop science at NC State; Dr. Fitzgerald Booker, associate professor of crop science at NC State and USDA-ARS plant physiologist; Dr. Teddy Holt, adjunct professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at NC State and a scientist at Naval Research Laboratory-Monterey; and colleagues from across the country.

Aerosols have been known to affect the climate by changing the radiation that reaches the earth surface. Increase in aerosols is often considered one possible reason that the earths surface has not seen as much warming as previously projected by climate models.

Previous studies have shown that many factors affect the carbon cycle, including rainfall and changes in land cover. But this study is believed to be the first multisite, observational analysis demonstrating that aerosols affect the carbon cycle. The study shows aerosols affect the earths regional climate in an even more profound manner by affecting its biological and chemical exchanges of the greenhouse gases.

The study examined six sites across the United States in the summertime; these locations were chosen because data on aerosols and carbon fluxes, or the changes in the carbon absorption and emission rates, were readily available. Sites ranged from grassland in Alaska to mixed forestland in Wisconsin to cropland in Oklahoma.

Before showing the effects of aerosols on the carbon cycle, the paper first showed the effects of diffuse radiation radiation that is not direct sunlight but radiation scattered by clouds, haze, or something else on carbon fluxes. The research showed that higher levels of diffuse radiation resulted in higher rates of carbon sink.

Although common sense would suggest that areas with plants receiving more constant direct sunlight would result in a surface becoming a carbon sink, that is not necessarily the case, Niyogi says. In fact, more radiation means plants more quickly reach a level of photosaturation. As Niyogi explains it, Plants absorb CO2 very efficiently. At very high levels of radiation, as is the case with direct radiation, additional increases do not necessarily cause increased photosynthesis. It doesnt matter how much more radiation you add, the plant is not going to absorb more CO2. But at lower levels of radiation, as is the case with diffuse radiation, any increase in radiation translates to additional photosynthesis.

The study then examined the effects of cloudiness on the carbon cycle. Cloudiness, which increased the amount of diffuse radiation, resulted in a greater amount of carbon sink in surface areas.

The study team then linked aerosols and diffuse radiation, and showed strong relationships between high amounts of aerosols and high amounts of diffuse radiation and between low amounts of aerosols and low amounts of diffuse radiation.

Finally, the study yielded its most important findings: Aerosols affect the carbon cycle in different types of landscapes, with forests and croplands serving as carbon sinks while grasslands served as carbon sources.

When you have more carbon being absorbed, it means that plants and forests there are going to grow faster, Niyogi said. And so it has the potential to alter the landscape. And when you have a change in landscape, or a change in the biogeochemical properties like the carbon cycle you have a landscape that is actively vulnerable to climate change.

Studies like these can really start putting forward the right processes in trying to quantify the carbon sink more accurately. Once we start introducing these reality-based processes into our models, well get better estimates of carbon budget, Niyogi said.

Niyogi now plans to add other variables to studying the carbon cycle, such as the effects of different types of aerosols, and factors like soil moisture. He is also planning regional and global analyses using satellite remote sensing and models to see if results square with the field studies.

The research was funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, and an NC State Faculty Research and Professional Development Award.

– – 30 – –

An abstract of the paper follows.

Direct Observations of the Effects of Aerosol Loading on Net Ecosystem CO2 Exchanges Over Different Landscapes
Authors: Dev Niyogi, Hsin-I Chang, V. K. Saxena, and Randy Wells, North Carolina State University; Teddy Holt, Naval Research Laboratory; Kiran Alapaty, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Fitzgerald Booker, USDA-ARS Air Quality-Plant Development Unit and NC State; Fei Chen, National Center for Atmospheric Research; Kenneth J. Davis, Penn State University; Brent Holben, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Toshihisa Matsui and Roger A. Pielke Sr., Colorado State University; Tilden Meyers and Kell Wilson, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Walter C. Oechel, San Diego State University; Yongkang Xue, University of California, Los Angeles
Published: Nov. 2004, in Geophysical Research Letters

Abstract: We present the first direct, multisite observations in support of the hypothesis that atmospheric aerosols affect the regional terrestrial carbon cycle. The daytime growing season (summer) CO2 flux observations from six sites (forest, grasslands and croplands) with collected aerosol and surface radiation measurements were analyzed for high and low diffuse radiation; effect of cloud cover; and effect of high and low aerosol optical depths (AOD). Results indicate that aerosols exert a significant impact on net CO2 exchange, and that their effect may be even more significant than that due to clouds. The response appears to be a general feature irrespective of the landscape and photosynthetic pathway. The CO2 sink increased with aerosol loading for forest and crop lands, and decreased for grassland. The cause for the difference in response between vegetation types is hypothesized to be canopy architecture.

Global Temperature Report: November 2004

by William Yeatman on December 7, 2004

in Science

Global temperature trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.08 C per decade

November temperatures (preliminary):

Global composite temp.: +0.15 C (about 0.27 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for November.

Northern Hemisphere: +0.29 C (about 0.52 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for November.

Southern Hemisphere: +0.01 C (about 0.02 degrees Fahrenheit) above 20-year average for November.

October temperatures (revised):

Global Composite: +0.24 C above 20-year average
Northern Hemisphere: +0.25 C above 20-year average
Southern Hemisphere: +0.23 C above 20-year average

(All temperature variations are based on a 20-year average (1979-1998) for the month reported.)

Notes on data released Dec. 8, 2004:

A color map of temperature anomalies from the previous month may soon be available on-line at: http://climate.uah.edu/

The processed temperature data is available on-line at:

http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt

As part of an ongoing joint project between UAH, NOAA and NASA, Dr. John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), and Dr. Roy Spencer, an ESSC principal research scientist, use data gathered by microwave sounding units on NOAA satellites to get accurate temperature readings for almost all regions of the Earth.

This includes remote desert, ocean and rain forest areas for which reliable climate data are not otherwise available.

The satellite-based instruments measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about eight kilometers above sea level. Once the monthly temperature data is collected and processed, it is placed in a “public” computer file for immediate access by atmospheric scientists in the U.S. and abroad.

Neither Spencer nor Christy receives any research support or funding from oil, coal or industrial companies or organizations, or from any private or special interest groups. All of their climate research funding comes from state and federal grants or contracts.

 — 30 —

Vol. 14, No. 7

For Additional Information:

Dr. John Christy, UAH, (256) 961-7763

christy@nsstc.uah.edu

Dr. Roy Spencer, UAH, (256) 961-7960

roy.spencer@msfc.nasa.gov

New report undermines climate change claims

by William Yeatman on December 6, 2004

in Science

As the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP) begins in Buenos Aires this week – the first COP since the ratification of the Kyoto protocol – scientists have published new research that calls into question many of the scientific assumptions driving global climate change policy.

The report, produced by the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington DC and the Scientific Alliance in London, suggests that calls for global action on climate change are often based on poor or uncertain science. In particular, the report sets out nineteen key questions and assumptions underpinning the climate change debate and global climate policy, highlighting a number of important areas where scientific uncertainty remains, as well as those where sound scientific evidence throws the Kyoto process into doubt.

Mark Adams, Director of the Scientific Alliance, said: The debate over the state of climate science and what it tells us about past and future climate has been going on for at least 15 years. It is not close to a conclusion, in spite of assertions to the contrary. The purpose of our paper is to subject the fundamentals of climate change science to the highest level of scientific scrutiny and to highlight those areas where further research is still needed.

William OKeefe, President of the George C. Marshall Institute, said: Climate change science has fallen victim to heated political and media rhetoric and as a consequence, the quality of science and rigors of the scientific process have suffered. The result is extensive misunderstanding over what we know about the climate system and what influences it, and the impact of human activity on future climate. The world will be ill served if global climate policy, planned out at events such as COP10, continues to be driven by politicized science instead of scientific facts and reality. The aim of our paper is to go some way towards restoring accuracy and clarity to the debate.

There are key issues that must be better understood if policy is to more closely match current knowledge levels. Examples of issues that are not adequately understood in the climate debate include:

– The assertion that there is a direct causal relationship between increased atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other green house gases, and increased temperature during the 20th century, greenhouse gases CO2 rose steadily, while temperatures rose fell and rose in a pattern that showed no direct relation to increased greenhouse gases.

– Whether global warming over the past century is unique to the past 1000 years or longer the IPCC Third Assessment Report conclusion that the warming of the 20th century is unique to at least the past 1000 years was based on a study (by Mann, et al.) that has been shown to be incorrect by three studies recently published in peer-reviewed literature. These studies show that many parts of the world have experienced warmer temperatures at some time during the last 1000 years than they did during the later part on the 20th century.

– The influence of the sun on global climate new studies indicate that changes in the Suns magnetic field may be responsible for shorter-term changes in climate, including for much of the 20th century.

– The influence of human activity on the possibility of abrupt climate change all available evidence indicates that ice ages are caused by changes in the amount of solar energy reaching the Earths surface rather than changes in greenhouse gas concentrations.

– The accuracy of climate change modelling the estimates from current climate change models are highly uncertain and large differences between the results from different modelling methods remain. No climate model has been scientifically validated

– Understanding about major climate processes and their importance in terms of understanding future climate change – key uncertainties about the influence of ocean circulation, the hydrological (water) cycle, cloud formation and the properties of aerosols on the climate system remain. The cumulative effect of these and other uncertainties in our understanding of the climate system is an inability to accurately model the climate system and therefore accurately project future climate.

The George C. Marshall Institute, a non-profit research group founded in 1984, is dedicated to fostering and preserving the integrity of science in the policy process. The Institute conducts technical assessments of scientific developments with a major impact on public policy and communicates the results of its analyses to the press, Congress and the public.

The Scientific Alliance, formed in 2001, is a non-profit membership-based organisation based in London. The Alliance brings together both scientists and non-scientists committed to rational discussion and debate on the challenges facing the environment today.

The nineteen questions addressed by the report are as follows:

1. How is the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) determined and how accurate are the measurements?

2. How much of todays atmosphere is CO2?

3. What has been the history of atmospheric CO2 concentrations?

4. Do we know why CO2 concentrations are rising?

5. What do we know about the relation between increases in the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases and temperature?

6. If temperature changes cannot be correlated with the increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, what is causing them?

7. What influence does the Sun have on global climate?

8. What is known with a high degree of certainty about the climate system and human influence on it?

9. What major climate processes are uncertain and how important are these processes to understanding future climate?

10. What tools are available to separate the effects of the different drivers that contribute to climate change?

11. How accurate are climate models?

12. What is the basis for forecasts of large temperature increases and adverse climate impacts between 1990 and 2100?

13. How accurate are the parameters used in climate models?

14. How well have models done in back-casting past climate?

15. Is global warming over the past century unique in the past 1000 years of longer?

16. How much does the global climate vary naturally?

17. What do we know about the extent of human influence on climate? To what extent has temperature increase since 1975 been the result of human activities?

18. Could climate change abruptly?

19. Will sea level rise abruptly?

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