Science

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) claimed that the year 2000 was the fifth warmest since 1880. Other temperature records find less warming. The year 2000 was only the 14^th warmest year since 1979 according to the satellite temperature record, and it was only the 9^th warmest year since 1880, according to records that include only measurements from meteorological stations.

It looks as though the NOAA data, which is cited by government officials and the news media may be the least accurate according to a study, which recently appeared in Geophysical Research Letters (January 1, 2001). The NOAA datasets “are a mixture of near-surface air temperatures over land and sea water temperatures over oceans,” according to Dr. John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Since actual air temperature data over many large ocean areas are nonexistent, the NOAA uses sea surface temperatures as a “proxy”, assuming that sea surface temperatures and air temperatures move in lock step. This is not the case, according to the data compiled by Christy and his colleagues at the Hadley Centre of the United Kingdoms Meteorological Office, who worked on the study. The researchers used buoy data in the tropical Pacific Ocean to compare “long-term (8-20 year) trends for temperatures recorded one meter below the sea surface and three meters above it.”

What they found was a significant discrepancy. “For each buoy in the Eastern Pacific, the air temperatures measured at the three meter height showed less of a warming trend than did the same buoys water temperatures at one meter depth,” Christy said. The difference is a near-surface seawater warming trend of 0.37 degrees C per decade and an air temperature trend of only 0.25 degrees C per decade during the 20-year period tested. Replacing the sea surface temperatures with the air temperature data reduces the Earths global warming trend by a third, from 0.19 to 0.13 degree C per decade.

Etc.

• Beyond Petroleum, formerly British Petroleum, told the British Parliament on January 18 that fuel taxes are being used by the government primarily to raise revenue and not to achieve environmental results. According to a January 19 Reuters story, BPs written submission to Parliaments Environmental Audit Select Committee states that, “We have observed that governments are apparently more driven by revenue than environmental objectives when setting the level of fuel duties.”

BPs report argues that the level of gas taxes in the United Kingdom, which amounts to three-quarters of the price paid at the pump, is ineffective and therefore unjustified. Reuters quotes the report: “We have also questioned the environmental efficacy of motor fuel taxes, mainly because they have so little effect on consumer behavior. The lack of alternatives and the importance of the motor car in modern life has left consumers with little option but to pay whatever tax is levied by the government.”

Cooler Heads reported in the November 1, 2000 issue that much higher gas taxes in Britain have not succeeded in reducing demand, thereby making it much harder to reach the carbon dioxide emission limits set by the Kyoto Protocol. It is not clear how BPs implied support for lower taxes would help to meet the Kyoto limits. BP is still selling motor fuels throughout the world, and in fact is Britain’s largest fuel retailer.

Announcements

• Freedom 21 is sponsoring a debate on “The Future of the Kyoto Protocol” at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on February 8, 2001. Featured speakers are the Rt. Hon. John Gummer, MP, and Dr. Alan Keyes. The event is designed to present fundamentally different views of the future of the Treaty, especially for the benefit of new Beltway residents, whether they be in Congress or the Bush Administration.

• The February 2001 issue of Discover magazine features an article about Dr. John Christy and his scientific views about global warming and his personal views about global warming policy.

Antarctic Ice Sheet Retreating More Slowly Than Thought

“New evidence suggests that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is retreating more slowly and contributing less to rising global sea levels than scientists once thought,” according to research summarized in a NASA news release (http://science.nasa.gov). The research was presented at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in San Francisco on December 16.

“Our previous best estimates that the ice sheet as adding 1 millimeter per year to global sea level are almost certainly too high,” said Robert Bindschadler, a glaciologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Scientists believed that the WAIS had reached its maximum growth 20,000 years ago, at about 3 times its current size. The new evidence, however, shows that it was still growing as little as 8,000 years ago.

According to Bindschadler’s analysis, “More rapid retreat approximately 7600 years ago and possible near-stability in the Ross Sea sector at present suggests a slow rate of initial retreat followed by a more rapid-than-average retreat during the late Holocene, returning to a near-zero rate of retreat currently” (http://earth.agu.org/meetings/fm00top.html).

“Bindschadler points to “the geologic record of dated stages in the retreat of the ice sheet’s continental base as evidence that it has shrunk in fits and starts,” according to the NASA news release. “Such episodic retreats may be controlled more by the varying depth of the underlying surface and water than by the changing climate.”

Global Temperatures in 2000: Hot or Cold?

The New York Times on December 19 proclaimed 2000 was “one of the hottest years since 1860,” even though the year wasn’t over and therefore not all the data had been collected yet. According to the World Meteorological Organization, said the Times, “2000 was the 22nd successive year that global temperatures have been above the average of the 1961-1990 base period.”

The use of 1961-1990 as the base period is suspect, however. That period encompasses a fairly long global cooling trend that began in 1940 and lasted through most of the 1970s. So it’s not surprising that temperatures since then have been above that particular average.

Preliminary data from the satellite measurements made by John Christy and Roy Spencer, on the other hand, show that global temperatures in the year 2000 were cooler than the running average since 1979. The overall trend since 1979 is plus 0.04 degrees C per decade, according to Christy, of the University of Alabama at Huntsville.

Red River Floods Not Caused by Global Warming

Flooding along the Red River in 1997 devastated parts of Canada and destroyed Grand Forks, North Dakota. Government officials from Canada and the U.S. (President Clinton and Vice President Gore) blamed the floods on global warming. Indeed, the Red River-climate change link has become ingrained in global warming folklore.

A new study shows that such a claim is entirely erroneous, however. Appearing in Natural Hazards (21: 2000), the study points out that the Red River has “a high natural potential for flooding” due to the fact that “it is located on a former glacial lake bottom.” In spite of the natural flood hazard posed by the area, development has continued to increase, thereby leading to ever-higher costs related to flood damage.

The 1997 flood was the largest of the 20th century, but it is smaller than floods that occurred in the 19th century. A slightly larger flood occurred in 1852, and in 1826 a catastrophic flood occurred that discharged 40 percent more water than the 1997 flood.

It’s a Cold, Cold Winter

The U.S. has just experienced its coldest November to December period in the 106-year temperature record in the lower 48 states, according to preliminary figures from the U.S. National Climatic Data Center. The World Climate Report (January 8, 2001) argues that these figures are likely to go down even further when the final data comes in. “The early returns are largely from urban stations whose concentrated economic activity is known to produce artificial warming, while rural stations, slower to report, are free from this effect and therefore could likely lower the preliminary average,” noted WCR.

In Siberia, one of the two areas in the world that is supposed to warm up more rapidly than any other, according to climate models (the other being Northwest North America), they are experiencing life threatening cold temperatures. The city of Barnaul recorded its lowest temperature in the last 100 years on January 7, 67 degrees below zero F. Authorities evacuated patients from poorly-heated hospitals.

In Krasnoyarsk the month of December never saw temperatures rise above minus 58 degrees F. People are keeping gas ovens running nearly 24 hours a day just to keep their homes at around 50 degrees F, and the freezing temperatures are disrupting the distribution of water.

Forecasters are worried that January could be even worse. According to UPI (January 7, 2001), “Weather forecasters confirm an old Russian tradition according to which the harshest weather can be expected during the so-called ‘Baptist Frost,’ the week following January 19.”

Text References

Bernard, H.W. Jr.; “Global Warming Unchecked,” Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 1993.

Emmanuel, K.E.; “The Dependency of Hurricane Intensity on Climate,” Nature 326, 1987.

Emmanuel, K.E.; “The Maximum Intensity of Hurricans,” J. Atm. Sci., 45, 1988.

Flavin, C.; “Storm Warning, Climatic Change Hits the Insurance Industry,” World Watch, 7, #6, 1994.

Friedman, D.G.; “Implications of Climatic Change for the Insurance Industry,” National Hazards Research Program, Travelers Insurance Company, Hartford, Connecticut, 1989.

Gardner, B.; (Personal Communication), January 1995.

Imbrie & Imbrie; “Ice Ages,” Enslow, Short Hills, N.J., 1979.

IPCC; (International Panel on Climatic Change) “Climate Change, the Scientific Assessment,” University of Cambridge, 1990.

IPCC; (International Panel on Climate Change) “Radiative Forcing of Climate, the 1994 Report of the Scientific Assessment Working Group of IPCC, Summary for Policymakers, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,” 1994.

Jones, P.D. & P. YA Groisman, et al.; “Assessment of Urbanization Effects in Time Series of Surface Air Temperature over Land,” Nature, 347, 1990a.

Jones, P.D. & P.M. Kelley et al; ” The Effect of Urban Warming on the Northern Hemispheres Average Temperature,” J. Climate, 2, 1990b.

Karl, T.R. & Baker, C.B.; “Global Warming Update,” Invited Presentation at the 74th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society, 1995.

Karl, T.R., et al.; United States Historical Climatology Network National and Regional Estimates of Monthly and Annual Precipitation. pp 830-905. In T.A. Boden et al. Trends 93: A Compendium of Global Change. ORNL/CDIAC-65. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A., 1994.

Lighthill, J. & G. Holland, et al.; “Global Climate Change and Tropical Cyclones”, Bulletin American Meteorological Society, 75, 1994.

Lindzen, R.S.; “Climatic Dynamics & Global Change,” Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech., 1994a.

Lindzen, R.S.; “On the Scientific Basis for Global Warming,” Env. Pollution, 83, 1994b.

Lindzen, R.S.; “Some Coolness Concerning the Global Warming.” Bulletin American Meteorological Society, 71, 1990.

Michaels, P.J.; “Sound and Fury The Scientific Polities of Global Warming,” CATO Inst., Washington, D.C., 1992.

National Weather Service, NOAA; “Tropical Cyclones of the North Atlantic Ocean, 1878-1986,” National Climatic Data Center, 1992.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory; “Trends 93: A Compendium of Data on Global Climate,” ESD Publ. #4195, Oak Ridge, Indiana, September 1994.

Obasi, G.O.P.; “WMOs Role in the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction,” Bulletin American Meteorological Society, 75, Vol. 9, 1993.

Ostby, F.P.; “The Changing Nature of Tornadoes Climatology,” 17th Conf. Severe Local Storm, October 1993.

Piexoto and Oort; “Physics of Climate,” American Institute of Physics, 1992.

Spencer, R.W. & J.R. Christy; “Precise Monitoring of Global Temperature Trends from Satellite,” Science, 247, March 1990.

White, C.F.; “A Perspective on Reduction Losses from Natural Hazards,” Bulletin American Meteorology Society, 75, #7, 1994.

20^th Century Warming Explained, Say Modelers

Global warming scientists keep on turning out computer-generated climate models that purport to “prove” that global warming is real and is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, even though politicians and environmental activists keep telling us the science is settled.

The latest such effort, published in Science (December 15, 2000), comes from the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, a major booster of catastrophic global warming. One of the puzzles that climatologists have struggled with is that there were two warming episodes in the 20^th century, one early on and one in the last 30 years, that are roughly equal in magnitude and duration.

The current surface temperature trend has been attributed to the emission of greenhouse gases, but the early 20^th century warming occurred when human emissions of greenhouse gases were insignificant. The new study claims that the early warming was due to natural causes, but that the current one is manmade.

The authors “made an ensemble of simulationsthat includes both the most important anthropogenic forcings and the most important natural forcings during the 20^th century.” The primary natural forcings used in the model were volcanic eruptions, which cool the climate, and solar variability. The models show that the natural forcings account for the early 20^th century warming, between 1910 and 1939, which was characterized by increased solar activity and little volcanic activity.

Natural forcing explains the early trend, but fails to explain the current trend. Anthropogenic forcing on the other hand explains the current trend but not the earlier trend. The researchers claim, “When we include both anthropogenic and natural forcings, our model successfully simulates not just the observed global mean response, but also some of the large scale features of the observed temperature response.” Extending the model into the future, the researchers predict that by 2100 the earth will have warmed by 3 degrees C.

David Wojick in Electricity Daily (December 15, 2000) noted, “The amount of solar variance over the last century is a matter of debate, not to mention the forcing effect of that variance. Henceit is impossible to compare that effect statistically with the temperature record. As one skeptic puts it, You cant compare what you dont understand.”

2000 Temperatures Reverse Trend

The following item appeared in the New York Times (December 24, 2000):

“Globally, the 10 warmest years in the past century have all been since 1982. But a list of the warmest 10 years in the United States looks quite different: 1998, 1934, 1999, 1921, 1931, 1990, 1953, 1954, 1939, 1987. But that is the way of weather. Not every region follows the global trend. Not every drought is a sign of global warming and not every cold front a refutation. This year was on pace to become the warmest on record for the United States [as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was quick to point out] until November, which turned out to be the second coldest on record. So 2000 is now expected to fall somewhere between 7^th and 12^th.”

But Tom Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, wasnt about to let a cold November get in the way of a good global warming story. “I think this goes to illustrate that even in a warming trend,” Dr. Karl said, “one can and should expect an individual month with some very anomalously cold weather.”

The Real Greenhouse Effect

The George C. Marshall Institute has just released a published manuscript of a speech given on May 17 by Dr. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at M.I.T. The speech, Climate Forecasting: When Models are Qualitatively Wrong, argues that climate models are wanting compared to real world data.

Dr. Lindzen begins by discussing the “real greenhouse effect.” According to him, the explanation as presented to the public of what constitutes the greenhouse effect is misleading. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change explains, for instance, that sunlight passes through the atmosphere to illuminate the earths surface. Some sunlight is reflected, but much is absorbed. Greenhouse gases, primarily clouds and water vapor, act like a blanket that prevents heat escaping from the earth, and the earth gets warmer.

In reality, said Lindzen, “Infrared gases, not the surface, are what send the radiation back to space. Indeed, space cannot see the surface, by and large, except at the poles. Instead, space sees some level about five kilometers up, in the troposphere.” This level is known as the “characteristic emission level” (CEL). A doubling of CO₂ would cause the CEL to move out about 150 meters, says Lindzen. “But because the temperature of the air decreases with height, this new level is colder. And because it is colder, it emits less radiation to space. That creates an imbalance, and the greenhouse effect requires that balance be reestablished. Essentially, to make up for raising the CEL 150 meters, the temperature has to increase about 1 degree C at the CEL.”

“How this impacts earths surface is not at all clear,” said Lindzen. Events at five kilometers are connected to events at the surface by processes such as motions of the air so it is thought that the surface will follow suit. “That gives you a 1 degree C increase at the surfacemaybe.”

So where do the estimates of warming from 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C come from? Through feedbacks that amplify the initial warming caused by increases in greenhouse gases. A positive feedback is one that amplifies warming and a negative feedback is one that dampens it. The models show that as temperature warms the air holds more water vapor, the principal greenhouse gas. This is a positive feedback that amplifies warming.

The problem with the models is their use of average cloud cover or average humidity. “We know that thinking in terms of averages is not appropriate. Rather, observations show very dry air in some regions, very moist air in others, and very sharp boundaries between them,” said Lindzen.

Looking at how these moist and dry regions react to changes in atmospheric CO₂ is the key to understanding global warming, according to Lindzen. He has found “that the area of cloudy regions went down 15 percent for every 1 degree C increase in temperature,” a negative feedback.

Lindzen concludes, “If you calculate the impact of this negative feedback on the globe as a whole, the impact is larger by a factor of four than the total positive feedbacks in the most sensitive current models. What this means is that even if there were a factor-of-five uncertainty in what weve seen which is a large uncertainty the models that predict that doubling carbon dioxide would increase temperature 1.5 degrees to 4 degrees C, would now predict an increase of 0.6 degrees to 1.5 degrees C.”

CO2 and Biodiversity

An editorial by the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change argues that the rising concentration of atmospheric CO₂ increases biodiversity. The article cites two studies, one in Nature (406) and the other in the Annual Review of Ecology and Sytemics (30). The Nature study found that, “At continental scales, the diversity of plants and animals usually increases monotonically with productivity.” The ARES article found that, “At larger spatial scales it has been observed that diversity tends to increase linearly with productivity.”

This means that biodiversity increases at the same rate as plant productivity. It has been shown repeatedly in scientific studies that higher levels of atmospheric CO₂ enhance plant productivity. According to the article, “Pulling these two observations together, we conclude that one of the best things we could possibly do to preserve the biodiversity or species richness of the planet is let the carbon dioxide content of the air continue to rise, rejecting all overt attempts to curtail anthropogenic CO₂ emission via Kyoto-style interventions.” See www.co2science.org.

Announcements

• The George C. Marshall Institute has published a study, Climate Models and the National Assessment, by Dr. David Legates, Associate Professor of Climatology in the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware. Legates criticizes the National Assessments misuse of Global Climate Models to predict regional impacts of global warming. To get a copy of the study, contact Jeff Salmon or Mark Herlong at (202) 296-9655. A press release may be found at www.marshall.org.
• The Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University in St. Louis has published a monograph, Applying the Precautionary Principle to Global Warming, by Indur M. Goklany. Goklany argues that “the so-called precautionary principle often invoked to justify a greenhouse gas control policy must consider not only risks that such a policy might reduce but also risks that it might generate.” For more information, contact Robert Batterson at (314) 935-5676. The CSAB web sites address is www.csab.wustl.edu.

Reiter Responds to Epstein

In the August issue of Scientific American, Paul Epstein claimed that global warming was to blame for several diseases ranging from malaria to West Nile virus to hantavirus. Paul Reiter, Chief of the Entomology Section of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dengue Branch, has replied in a letter in the December issue. According to Reiter, malaria was rampant in England during the Little Ice Age when temperatures were much cooler. “Climate is not the dominant factor in malarias prevalence or its distribution,” said Reiter.

Reiters opinion of Epstein as a scientist is low. “Nearly all of Paul R. Epsteins inferences in “Is Global Warming Harmful to Health?” about the causes of the recent spread of Aedes aegypti and dengue, the increasing prevalence of malaria at altitude, future dramatic increases in the disease throughout the world, the risk of yellow fever in the Andes, the outbreak of West Nile virus in New York, and so on are based on intuition, not science. Serious public health problems cry out to be addressed seriously. Epsteins reveries amount to a comedy of errors.”

Epstein responded that the mainstream scientists (whoever they are) agree with him and then proceeded to repeat his litany of horrors, without addressing Reiters objections.

British Floods Bring More Hysteria

In a desperate attempt to further intimidate the British populace into tolerating higher energy prices, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has claimed that recent heavy rainfall and flooding in Britain is “a wake-up call” on global warming” (Sunday Telegraph, November 26, 2000). Most of the quality and tabloid London papers were full of quotes from assorted environmentalists essentially announcing that apocalypse was nigh unless Britons repented from their carbon dioxide-emitting ways. Leading climate experts in Britain called the claims scientific nonsense. According to the Sunday Telegraph, “Climate experts will reveal this week that the most likely cause is the so-called North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a pattern of atmospheric pressure which forms over the ocean.” The NAO alternates between positive and negative phases. During its positive phase Britain experiences mild, wet and stormy winters. A positive phase causes cold, dry and calm winters. Dr. David Stephenson, head of the Climate Analysis Group at the University of Reading, who organized the conference being held in Orense, Spain, “The NAO was positive in October, but not by an unprecedented amount. The October storms were not extreme in terms of intensity or rainfall amounts, but caused floods due to their accumulated effects.”Dr. Andy Baker of the University of Newcastle studied stalagmite growth to show that Britains bad weather is not abnormal and shows no sign of worsening. “We have shown that nature is able to repeat current events without the help of global warming.”

Canadian Weather is Dull to Normal

Environment Canada has been beating the global warming drum for some time, blaming several recent natural disasters on global warming. “In fact,” says Environment Canada, “the 1980s and 90s have been the warmest decades since people began keeping records. This warming trend will cause changes in other elements of the Earths climate system, in turn influencing our weather patterns.”The National Post decided to test these claims against the evidence by asking, “How bad is it, really?” In 1998, ice storms in Canada were cited as evidence of global warming. But, noted the Post, “An ice storm in 1942 resulted in ice as thick as a persons wrist on telephone wires, trees and railway tracks.”In 1999 heavy snowfall plagued Toronto, but in 1944 48 cm of snow fell on Toronto in a single day. “On July 14, 2000, said the Post, Canadians were shocked when a deadly tornado ripped through Pine Lake, Alberta.” But far deadlier tornadoes occurred in 1912 in Regina, 1922 in Manitoba, 1946 and 1974 in Windsor, 1985 in Barrie and 1987 in Edmonton.Canadas longest heat wave occurred in 1936, lasting 12 days and killing 1,180 lives in Manitoba and Ontario. The hottest day ever recorded in Canada was in 1937. Canadas driest year occurred in 1961. The second driest occurred in 1936. The 1997 Red River flood, which caused $500-million in damage, was blamed directly on global warming. But in 1950 a flood on the Red River also caused $500-million in damage, in 1950 dollars.

Announcements

• The Cooler Heads Coalition will hold a congressional and media briefing Wednesday, December 6, on “The COP-6 Collapse: What Happened, What Does It Mean, and Where Do We Go From Here?” The roundtable briefing will be held from Noon till 1:30 PM in Room 210B, Cannon House Office Building. For further information, please contact Myron Ebell at (202) 331-1010.

• The Heritage Foundation has published a background paper, “Road to the Hague: a Desperate Effort to Salvage a Flawed Climate Treaty.” The author is Angela Antonelli, Heritages director of economy policy studies. The 12-page paper may be found at www.heritage.org/library/backgrounder/bg1401.html.

• To receive the Cooler Heads Newsletter by e-mail, please contact the editor at mebell@cei.org.

James Hansen, of NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies, recently published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which argued that CO₂ may not have contributed as much to global warming as previously thought, but that the warming could be explained by other emissions, such as black carbon aerosols, methane, and ozone.

Hansens paper made a big splash in the media and received criticism from environmentalists who believed that it gave too much ammo to global warming skeptics who argue that theres no need to reduce CO₂ emissions. Hansen has recently written an open letter (which appears to be nearly as long as the paper itself) to clarify what his paper said.

Hansen argues that his paper is merely an “alternative scenario” of how to reduce anthropogenic forcing to 1 Watt per meter squared (Wm^-2) over the next 50 years. He derives his alternative scenario by noting that CO₂ produced by burning fossil fuels induces a positive 1.4 Wm^-2 climate forcing. This also produces a sulfate aerosol climate forcing of negative 1.4 Wm^-2, which cancels out the CO₂ forcing. Hansen then claims that what is left is a 1.4 Wm^-2 climate forcing from other greenhouse gases.

Hansens scenario is to reduce forcing to 1 Wm^-2 over the next fifty years, which requires, he is eager to point out, some reduction in CO₂. But this begs the question, If CO₂ forcing is completely cancelled by sulfate aerosol forcing, what then causes global warming? Hansens protestations aside, his paper clearly relegates CO₂ to a non-factor in climate change. Only his arbitrary choice of a forcing target of 1 Wm^-2 makes its reduction necessary.

Announcements

The Greening Earth Society has just released a new book, The Greening of the American West, which features before and after photos of different locations in the American West showing changes in vegetation over the last 125 years. The book, authored by Craig and Keith Idso of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, shows that vegetation has increased in several areas of the Western United States, which is attributed partly to the fertilizing effects of rising concentrations of CO₂. Details on how to obtain the book can be found at www.greeningearthsociety.org.

Computer Models Still Wrong

Early this year the National Research Council released a report that argued that there was still a major discrepancy between the satellite- and surface-based temperature data but that both datasets were essentially correct. This presented a major challenge for computer models, according to the study, since they predict a substantial warming in the atmospheric layer measured by satellites while the data show almost no warming.

A study in Science (February 18, 2000) by Benjamin Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and his co-authors claimed to explain the discrepancy and to put the satellite data in accordance with the surface data, thereby claiming that computer model predictions of global warming were correct after all.

A new study in the Geophysical Research Letters (September 15, 2000) by University of Virginia climatologist Patrick Michaels and Paul Knappenberger of New Hope Environmental Services takes issue with Santers findings. Santers study pointed out that computer models did not take into account the cooling influence of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. By including this factor, claimed Santer, computer models could account for the lack of warming, reducing the discrepancy to a statistically insignificant 0.045 degrees C.

The Michaels-Knappenberger study takes into account several other natural forcings that influence atmospheric temperatures, specifically the eruption of El Chichn in the early 1980s and El Nio. Taking these into account puts the discrepancy between model predictions and the observed temperature data at 0.162 degrees C or 360 percent the amount found by Santer, et al.

Michaels and Knappenberger conclude, “That current-generation GCMs [global circulation models] do not accurately reproduce the observed temperature history of the lower troposphere during the MSU [microwave sounding units] era remains unchallenged.” Moreover, “Until the GCMs can produce accurate representations of the known three-dimensional climate history, they cannot be relied upon to produce future scenarios that are accurate enough to serve as the basis for climate impact assessments.”

Long Term Sea Level Change

Are changes in sea level due to the emission of manmade greenhouse gases or are they due to natural fluctuations? According to two new studies in Marine Geology (163, 2000), they may be natural. According to the studies, the evidence suggests that sea levels have fallen significantly for the last 6,000 years. Moreover, from 6,000 to 600 years ago the researchers determined that sea levels fluctuated by as much as 1 meter while experiencing an overall decline.

What this means is that the earths ocean levels could be increasing due to natural oscillations that have nothing to do with global warming. This sea level behavior, according to the authors, is just as likely an explanation for current sea level rise as the global warming hypothesis.

Etc.

With the unusual amount of press attention given to warmer than normal days, we feel it is our duty to point out when temperatures plunge below normal. The month of October has been unseasonably cool throughout the Southeastern U.S. and beyond. In fact, record low temperatures have been recorded in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Record low temperatures across the state of Tennessee lead meteorologist Mark Rose of the National Weather Service to comment that, “I dont know if Ive ever seen this many records in one day” (Associated Press, October 10, 2000).

Although the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has held several press conferences over the last two years to associate global warming with every temperature spike, theyve remained silent during the current Southern cold snap. It has, however, come out with its winter forecast. “We’ve probably forgotten over the last three years what a normal winter is like. With La Nia and El Nio out of the way, normal winter weather has a chance to return to the U.S. this year,” meaning colder winters, according to D. James Baker, who heads the NOAA. Temperatures in the Northeast region of the U.S. could be as much as 4 degrees C below the previous three winters.