Science

Are Humans Melting the Arctic?

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

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

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

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

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

Warm Winters: Polar Vortex or Global Warming?

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

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

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

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

Another Scientific Assessment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Art of Myth-making

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

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

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

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

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

Crystal Ball Science

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

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

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

Hurricane Activity

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

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

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

Etc.

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

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

Glaciers Melt Despite Cooler Temperatures

Flooding, mudslides and spillover from the Indus River in the Ladakh area along the Kashmiri and Tibetan border in the Himalayan Mountains were caused at least in part from glacier meltwater. One news story about the resulting damage to the famous thousand-year-old Hemis Buddhist Monastery mentioned that global warming may be the culprit.

Robert Balling, a climatologist at Arizona State University, decided to see if warmer temperatures were indeed the cause of melting glaciers in the Himalayas. When he analyzed the 123-year temperature record for the region, compiled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he found no trend. His analysis revealed a statistically insignificant 0.04 degrees C cooling trend.

“Obviously, heavy rains during this past summer could be responsible for difficulties in the Ladakh area,” Balling wrote. “However, any suggestion that the nearby glaciers are retreating because of warming during this century is inconsistent with the temperature data for the region. The simplistic notion that glacial retreat implies local warming once again melts away when available temperature records are examined” (www.greeningearthsociety.org).

Heat Mortality and Adaptation

Predicted increases in heat-related mortality have been a staple of the global warming propaganda machine. The IPCC, for example, claims that, “[Based upon data from several North American cities,] the annual number of heat-related deaths would approximately double by 2020 and would increase several-fold by 2050.” But, according to a paper presented by Robert Davis, a climatologist with the University of Virginia, at the International Congress on Biometeorology in Sydney, Australia, these gloomy scenarios are incorrect.

The problem arises from plugging historic mortality data into future climate scenarios. If, for example, on average 50 people die as a result of a heat wave, then a tripling of the number of heat waves will triple the death rate. The paper found, however, that this simple extrapolation does not coincide with the data. By analyzing heat-related mortality in the New York City area, Davis and his four coauthors found that the weather/death link has weakened over the last few years (World Climate Report, www.greeningearthsociety.org/climate).

Hurricanes on the Rise

It sounds like the familiar global warming rhetoric weve all heard so often. According to William Gray, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Colorado State University, over the next 20 years “Well see hurricane damage like weve never seen before,” on the southeast coast of the U.S. (Denver Rocky Mountain News, November 27, 1999).

There is one difference in Dr. Grays predictions, however. Global warming is not the cause. “The global warming scenario is suspect as hell, I think,” said Gray. “Perhaps there has been a little bit of global warming, but its natural, cyclical, whether or not human-induced greenhouse gases are being put into the atmosphere,” said Gray (The Times-Picayune, November 30, 1999). Dr. Grays research has shown that hurricane activity follows a 20 to 40 year ocean circulation cycle that has occurred for thousands of years.

Dr. Grays predictions have been remarkably accurate. For this past hurricane season he predicted that there would be nine hurricanes there were eight. He predicted 14 named storms there were 12. And he predicted that there would be 75 hurricane days and there were 77. “He has made a tremendous contribution to tropical meteorology,” said Max Mayfield, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “Bill Gray gets all the credit for saying were heading back into a multidecadal period of intense hurricanes.”

In spite of his success, Dr. Gray has recently had difficulty finding funding to continue his research. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has ceased funding Dr. Grays work. Officials claim that similar work is now being done by the National Hurricane Center and that Dr. Grays work is no longer needed. Moreover, Grays work is no longer ground breaking.

Dr. Gray has a different take. “I think its partly a backlash due to my criticism of their theories of global warming, and Ive also been criticizing their methodology of climate prediction.” All thirteen of Dr. Grays grant requests since 1991 have been turned down.

Astronomical Cycles and Global Warming

Several factors have been implicated in climate change, including the sun, carbon dioxide, and changes in the Earths orbit. A team of researchers with the University of California-Berkeley has found that climate cycles are closely related to astronomical cycles. “Astronomy is responsible for almost all climate changes,” said project leader Richard Muller.

By examining sediment cores from the bottom of the oceans, the researchers found that ice ages last about 90,000 years followed by a warm period of about 10,000 years. They then examined astronomical cycles that influence the tilt of the Earths orbit and found that there is a close match between astronomical cycles and climate cycles. According to Muller, “When we look at ancient records of planets, these astronomical cycles appear in the climate record.

The gravitational forces from changes in the positions of other planets change the tilt of the Earths orbit. “By using the laws of physics, we can figure out what kind of cycles (other planets) induce on the orbit of the earth,” Muller said. Jupiter and Venus affect on Earths orbit the most. Jupiter because of its large mass and Venus because its relative proximity to Earth.

The researchers found that the Earth experiences ice ages when its orbit is less tilted and warm periods when it is more tilted. Unfortunately, they dont know why the tilt of the orbit influences climate. “We have lots of guesses and we are trying to figure out which one is correct,” Muller said. “The first guess is dust. Dust hitting the Earth has the same cycles as the ice ages.” But theres just not enough dust to account for dramatic climate change by itself, according to Muller, so there must be some feedback process at work.

“Our best guess as of right now is that changes in the dust affect the formation of clouds,” said Muller. “Remarkably, cloud formation is not well understood.” Muller does not discount manmade global warming, however. He argued that global warming is a near future phenomenon and that the coming ice age is in the distant future (University Wire, November 18, 1999).

Coral Reefs Rebound

The bleaching of coral reefs has been touted as one of the consequences of global warming. In a previous issue we highlighted a study that showed that coral bleaching may be part of a natural cycle. That finding now seems to be confirmed with the recovery of coral reefs throughout the world. The ProDivers News writes, “We are sure you will share our optimism and delight in the knowledge that coral growth and recovery is reported even in areas where extensive damage has been caused due to bleaching.” Information about coral reef recovery can be found on the web at www.prodivers.com/coralnews.htm.

Disease Not Due to Global Warming

The recent outbreak of West Nile virus in the New York metropolitan area was linked by some to global warming. But, said Sidney Shindell, professor emeritus in the department of preventive medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, “Dont you believe it. Theres no evidence that global warming is to blame. If anything, travel affects the emergence of disease, and human migrations have been the main source of disease outbreaks throughout history.”

“To combat mosquito-borne illnesses effectively,” said Shindell, we must “strengthen our public health infrastructure and implement better disease-prevention strategies, not invest in schemes to reduce greenhouse emissions that will disrupt our economy and place even more lives at risk” (Wisconsin State Journal, November 14, 1999).

No More Extreme Weather

Environment Canadas (a government department) senior climatologist, David Phillips is a global warming skeptic. Though many of his colleagues claim that mans warming of the planet leads to more destructive weather, Phillips says there is no proof of such a link. “The point Ive argued about with my colleagues is all the weather weve seen in recent history cant be blamed on global warming,” said Phillips. “There is no scientific evidence to suggest that the ice storm in Ontario last year or the Red River flood in Manitoba were direct results of what were doing to the atmosphere.”

Phillips doesnt discount the possibility that mans influence on the atmosphere may lead to more extreme weather, but the evidence doesnt show it. Phillips blames much of the erroneous perception on the advent of “storm porn,” the medias overreaction to natural disasters. The perception of more extreme weather, says Phillips, may have more to do with increasing media coverage than actual changes.

Phillips argues that population growth is blame for perceived increases in natural disasters. “Weathers doing a bigger number of people,” says Phillips. “That doesnt make the weather more extreme. Its just that were bigger targets now. Were getting in the way of the weather” (The Edmonton Sun, November 14, 1999).

Why We Shouldnt Sweat Global Warming

In a briefing for congressional staff and media on November 5, sponsored by the Cooler Heads Coalition, Dr. Patrick Michaels debunked many of the global warming myths that have made their way into public debate over the last decade. Climate models have consistently overestimated climatic warming, and new research has proved that mild warming will likely be beneficial to human beings and the planet, according to Dr. Michaels, Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia

“The warming we are seeing is largely confined to the areas of Siberia and northwestern North America, and the vast majority of that occurs during the winter months,” Dr. Michaels explained. Accordingly, the most likely result of a predicted 1.5-degree increase in temperatures over the next 100 years will be slightly milder winters in Siberia and Northern Canada, hardly doomsday effects.

The current, rather mild, warming projections come from many of the same researchers that made the apocalyptic warming predictions of a decade ago. Climatologists around the world have been progressively revising their predictions downward as their models improve. “It appears that the people who were the so-called small band of skeptics must have had a point,” Dr. Michaels commented.

Dr. Michaels critiqued media coverage linking “severe” weather to global warming. He noted that neither droughts, hurricanes, nor floods have increased significantly in the last 50 years. Regarding the infamous Dust Bowl drought of 1934, Dr. Michaels stressed how such events were part of the earths natural cycle: “Severe droughts have happened before, and theyre going to happen again. Except that the next time, itll be global warming thats responsible. No one will want to hear about all the times these kinds of event have happened in the past.”

The talk concluded with some very simple answers to the climate change debate. Temperature increases, concentrated in the coldest parts of the world, and mostly during winter, will, if anything, be beneficial. “Cold related deaths outnumber heat related deaths four to one,” Dr. Michaels pointed out.

Two members of Ozone Action passed out a one page “expos” of Dr. Michaels that misrepresented his views on global warming. During Q&A, Dr. Michaels confronted them but they had no response. Hopefully, Ozone Actions misperceptions regarding Dr. Michaels views have been cleared up.

The Costs of El Nio, La Nia

El Nio has taken a lot of heat for its alleged role in several adverse weather events. In our September 15 issue we highlighted a study that argued that El Nios influence on weather patterns is a net benefit to the U.S. economy. A new study in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (October 1999), by Roger Pielke with the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Christopher Landsea of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, gives further evidence that El Nio is a beneficial phenomenon.

The study looked at how hurricane activity was affected by the El Nio Southern Oscillation (ENSO) from 1925 to 1997. The authors found that most of the recent hurricane damage occurred during periods of transition between El Nio and La Nia. El Nio periods, however, experienced fewer damaging hurricanes than both the transition periods and periods of La Nia. “The average damage per storm of El Nio years is $800 million versus $1,600 million in La Nia years,” said the authors.

Green activists argued during the most recent El Nio that global warming would lead to more frequent and more intense El Nios that would have all sorts of adverse climatic consequences. Even if the Greens are correct about the link between global warming and El Nio (theres no evidence of a link in the scientific literature), they are wrong that it will be harmful. The evidence shows that El Nio is a good thing.

Sinking Carbon: Literally

The use of carbon sinks has been hotly debated, with Green activists, who dont want anything to interfere with the elimination of fossil fuels, being opposed to their use, and industry in favor of their use. The evidence is clear, however, that there is great potential in the use of carbon sinks, if removing CO₂ from the atmosphere is the sort of thing one would like to do.

According to researchers at Kansas State University, one of the greatest potential carbon sinks is the prairie soils of Americas breadbasket. They argue that “Changes in farming techniques such as not plowing the soil and adjusting crop rotations so that land is left fallow for shorter periods can keep the carbon locked up in the soil for hundreds, if not thousands of years” (The Sunday Gazette Mail (Charleston, W.Va.), November 7, 1999).

Climate Science Position Statement from Germany

The German Meteorological Society has issued a position statement on the current state of climate science. The statement notes many of the shortcomings of current climate models, arguing that “It is therefore scientifically proven without a doubt that radiation fluxes in the system Earth/Atmosphere are changed through the increase of climate-relevant trace gases. Without consideration of feedback effects in the complicated climate system, this would certainly lead to a warming of the surface and troposphere. The real, scientifically challenging debate deals with the question to what extent the different feedback processes strengthen or diminish the warming from radiative forcing” (translation courtesy of Fred Singer). For further details see The Week that Was, November 6, 1999 at www.sepp.org.

Global Warming Science Uncertain

There are still large gaps in our understanding of the causes of global warming, according to a new study by the National Research Council, Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade. The 600-page report argues that more research money is needed for global climate observations systems.

Before we begin spending money on “mitigation science”, we should learn more about the fundamentals of global warming science, according to the report. “Our current ability to answer these scientific questions is seriously blocking progress in critical policy development.” The report also warns that policymakers should not assume that we know everything we need to know about climate just because there are international negotiations to mitigate global warming.

International agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol, “are based on a general understanding of some causes and characteristics of global change,” says the reports preface. “However, there remain many scientific uncertainties about important aspects of climate change” (BNA Daily Environment Report, October 19, 1999).

Sea Level: Rising or Falling?

As empirical data about global warming continues to roll in scientists become more and more aware of just how little they know about the climate system. Data from Australias National Tidal Facility of recent sea level trends in the Pacific area, for example, give a mixed picture. The following are sea level measurements from several sites in the Pacific:

Location	Length [months]	Trend
Cook Is.	64	+13.7
Samoa	64	-9.7
Tonga	65	+29.1
Tuvalu	62	-34.3
Fiji	69	+10.3
Kiribati	62	-21.4
Marshall Is.	58	-11.7
Vanuatu	55	+12.1
Nauru	59	-26.4
Solomon Is.	45	-41.3
Papua NG	32	-43.6

As the table shows, there is no clear-cut answer as to what is happening to sea levels in the Pacific. If we average the data, we get a sea level fall of -11.2 mm/yr., but this still tells us almost nothing and has little meaning to an island such as Tonga, which is experiencing sea level rise. Given the large differences in sea level change its difficult to know what is going on (www.vision.net.au/~daly).

Ice Sheet Retreat is Natural and Inevitable

Proponents of the global warming hypothesis argue that the retreat of polar glaciers supports their views. Others disagree, arguing that the melting of glaciers cannot be tied to manmade global warming and are likely a result of natural processes. A new study in Science (October 8, 1999) supports the latter view.

According to the study, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has retreated 1300 km since the last glacial optimum 20,000 years ago. A complete collapse of the WAIS would cause sea level to rise by 5 to 6 meters. For the last 7,500 years, the grounding line of the WAIS has retreated approximately 120 meters per year, and, according to the study, “recent measurements indicate that the grounding-line retreat is continuing at about the same rate.” If the retreat continues at the same rate the “complete deglaciation will take about 7,000 years.”

The studys authors conclude, “We suggest that modern grounding-line retreat is part of ongoing recession that has been under way since early to mid-Holocene time. It is not a consequence of anthropogenic warming or recent sea level rise. In other words, the future of the WAIS may have been predetermined when grounding-line retreat was triggered in early Holocene time. Continued recession and perhaps even complete disintegration of the WAIS within the present interglacial period could well be inevitable.”

The study supports arguments made at the Cooler Heads briefings for congressional staff and media. Both Dr. David Malmquist of the Bermuda Biological Station for Research and Dr. S. Fred Singer of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, argued that sea level rise is primarily a natural process.

Global Warming May Lower Sea Levels

Last week we reported on Fred Singers Cooler Heads briefing to congressional staff and media where he argued that on decadal time scales there is an inverse relationship between global temperatures and sea levels, due to sea surface evaporation that transports moisture to the polar ice caps.

Now, Dr. John Bratton of the US Geological Survey argues that global warming could cause sea level to fall for an entirely different reason. Dr. Bratton argues that temperature rise would cause the melting of “clathrates” which are “sea-floor crystals of ice which enclose gases such as methane.” When these crystals melt, the gas escapes leaving a hole that could cause sea levels to fall by as much as 25 meters. Dr. Bratton estimates that sea level will fall by about 1.5 meters due to this phenomenon.

Dr. Bratton says that the expected fall in sea level from clathrate melting “is of the same order of magnitude as those associated with the thermal expansion of the oceans, melting of non-polar ice and melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet” (BBC News, October 7, 1999).

Isle of the Dead: The Death Knell of Global Warming?

Generally accepted estimates of sea level rise over the last century has been about 18 centimeters. This number has been arrived at using various direct measurements and proxy data. A new data point, however, threatens to challenge the current estimates. In 1841, the famous Antarctic explorer Captain Sir James Clark Ross, for whom the Ross Sea is named, and Thomas Lampriere, an amateur meteorologist, marked the mean sea level in the rock face of a small island known as the Isle of the Dead (used as a burial ground for dead convicts). The position of the mark was based on three years of sea level observations.

The mark was recently rediscovered and is now thirty centimeters above mean sea level, suggesting a large fall. According to John Daly, who maintains the website Still Waiting for Greenhouse, “when we look at the Ross-Lempriere 1841 bench mark, one thing becomes crystal clear: There has been no sea level rise this century none at all.”

Others have argued that something else may be responsible for the apparent discrepancy. David Pugh of the Southhampton Oceanographic Centre agues that the mark was a high water mark, not a mark of the mean sea level (BBC News, October 6, 1999). But Daly argues that Captain Ross explicitly stated on several occasions that it was a mean sea level mark. Even assuming that it is a high water mark, the current high water level is 30 to 36 centimeters above mean sea level or at the same level as the mark, meaning that at best there has been no sea level rise.

Other causes for the apparent fall in sea level have been suggested, such as tectonic uplift or a “blip” in the data during the time the mark was struck. These other causes, even taken together, would only account for a fraction of the sea level drop indicated by the mark, however. For further details see www.vision.net.au/~daly/.

Global Warming Will Not Raise Sea Level

On September 24, Dr. Fred Singer, president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, discussed the likelihood that sea level would rise due to global warming at a Cooler Heads Coalition science briefing for congressional staff and media.

Dr. Singer does not doubt that sea level has risen by about 18 cm over the last century. The most recent IPCC report finds that a little less than half of that rise can be accounted for by thermal expansion of the ocean and glacial melting. Moreover, an increase of ice accumulation over the Antarctic, as expected from warmer temperatures, reduces the rate of sea level rise. This leads Dr. Singer to conclude that most if not the entire sea level rise experienced over the last century is due to factors other than climate variations. Singer concludes that the rise is due to the long-term warming that began at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum.

Dr. Singer has also found that over shorter time scales there is an inverse relationship between global temperature and sea level rise. That is, as temperature increases sea levels fall. This is due to sea surface evaporation that transports moisture to the polar ice caps, expanding the amount of water locked up in ice at the poles. According to Dr. Singer, any warming that may occur due to human influences will slow down rather than speed up sea level rise over decades.

Over thousands of years, sea level will continue to rise at a rate of approximately 18 cm per year until the next ice age begins. The paper upon which Dr. Singers lecture was based can be found at www.sepp.org.

IPCC: Hedging Its Bets

Citing the futures unpredictability, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will not forecast a “best guess” scenario for greenhouse gas emissions for the next century. “There can be no best guess,” according to the draft special report released by the IPCC. “The future is inherently unpredictable and views will differ on which of the scenarios could be more likely.”

The report gives a range of possible CO₂ emission scenarios from five times todays levels or 36.7 billion tons by 2100 to 4.3 billion tons, slightly lower than todays levels. There are 40 scenarios in all, based on four different sets of assumptions about population, economic growth and technological advances. The main forecasts, for each set of assumptions, range from 6 billion tons to 29 billion tons. The report “extends the range significantly towards higher emissions,” more so than the previous IPCC report (New Scientist, September 18, 1999).

Hurricane Floyd in the Press

Although Hurricane Floyd spawned its share of over-hyped press, the aftermath has been fairly balanced. The September 27, 1999 issues of three major newsmagazines, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report all carried stories about Hurricane Floyd. Although each story raised the issue of global warming, they also discussed at length the fact that the current upswing in hurricane activity is due to natural, rather than manmade conditions.

The Time article claimed that global warming could increase ocean temperatures, leading to more intense hurricanes. Each one degree Fahrenheit rise in ocean temperature will increase hurricane wind speeds by 5 mph. This means that with global warming wind speeds could reach 200 mph. The North Atlantic is unusually warm this fall, and accounts for the peak size and strength reached by Floyd.

According to David Enfield, a researcher at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, there appears to be an upward trend in North Atlantic Ocean temperatures. “Like other oceanographers, Enfield believes this is the result of a natural climate shift, as opposed to human-induced global warming,” said Time.

According to Time, Roger Pielke, Jr., with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, says “its really not necessary to concoct ways to make hurricanes any more threatening than they already are. With or without global warming, there are going to be some whoppers in our future, and unlike Floyd, many of these will prove to be megadisasters. For the days when a big hurricane could make landfall in sparsely populated places are fast disappearingand that alone is cause enough for worry.”

All three magazines agree that global warming has little to do with current hurricane conditions. According to U.S. News & World Report, “Researchers do not yet know what might cause these long-term fluctuations, but they dont believe global warming is the culprit.” The Newsweek story discusses conditions under which hurricane activity could both increase or decrease in the event of global warming.

Perhaps most disappointing is a story that appeared in Time for Kids (September 24, 1999). The story treats Floyd as if it were as big as its pre-landfalling hype, referring to it as “Monstrous Hurricane Floyd, a 600-mile-wide superstorm.” The story noted that, “Many meterologists saw its incredible size and stength as proof that we are in an era of stronger and more frequent hurricane.” The article gives considerable more weight to theories that global warming is to blame than did its counterpart in Time for adults.

El Nios Benefits Greater Than Its Costs

A lot of attention was devoted to the El Nio event of 1997-98. Most of the attention was focused on the negative impacts of El Nio. Droughts, floods, tornadoes and other severe weather events were attributed to the much maligned weather phenomenon. A new study appearing in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (September 1999) by climatologist Stanley Changnon, finds that El Nio was a net economic benefit to the U.S.

According to the report, the losses included 189 lives due to tornadoes, property and crop damages from storms, and losses to the winter recreation industry and snow removal industry due to the mild winter, as well as government relief costs. The benefits included 850 lives saved because of the mild winter, major savings in the use of natural gas and heating oil, record retail and real estate sales, fewer spring floods, record construction levels and savings in airline and highway transportation. El Nio also served to greatly suppress the number of Atlantic hurricanes, leading to zero losses as a result.

The estimated losses from El Nio for the U.S. amounted to about $4 billion while the benefits were about $19 billion, a net benefit of $15 billion. The accurate prediction of the 1997 El Nio by the Climate Prediction Center allowed for mitigation efforts, which also led to a decrease in potential losses.

“The Lost Squadron” Buried Deep in the Ice

Melting glaciers have been a major concern in the global warming debate, especially the major ice sheets, due to the potential devastating consequences of rising sea levels. The evidence about whether the ice sheets are growing or shrinking has been mixed, however. Scientists are still not sure how glaciers will respond to changes in temperature.

An interesting bit of evidence has come to light with the discovery of “The Lost Squadron,” as shown in a study by climatologist Robert Balling for the Greening Earth Society. In 1942, a squadron of eight airplanes was forced to land on Greenlands icecap due to bad weather. The planes were recently discovered buried under 268 feet of snow and ice.

The dynamics of Greenlands icecap are very complex. One study posited that 1 degree C of warming would increase the amount of ice on Greenland due to increased snowfall. Other studies have found, however, that Greenland has cooled. Temperature data from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that the area where the planes were landed has cooled 2.25 degrees F since 1942. One study found that the seven glaciers in the southern part of Greenland responded very differently to a fall in temperature. Yet another study showed that Greenlands mass ice balance increased between 1950 and 1991.

According to Balling, the discovery of “The Lost Squadron” tells us that “linking temperature trends to changes in ice packs involves a complicated set of processes that defy the simplistic notion that warming automatically yields a loss of mass over major ice sheets. Once again we learn that things in the real world are never so simple as they might seem. We should be skeptical of bold pronouncements permeating conventional wisdom about global warming” (www.greeningearthsociety.org).

Britains Birds Like Warming

Contrary to speculation by Green activists that global warming will be devastating to earths biodiversity, scientific studies have confirmed that in the past greater levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures were beneficial to earths biosphere. Further evidence to suggest that a warmer climate would help wildlife comes from the largest survey ever made of Britains common birds, conducted by the British Trust for Ornithology, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

The survey found Britains “best-loved birds” are being helped by warmer weather. In Scotland, for example, species “which are experiencing a population boom outnumber those in decline by almost three to one,” reports The Scotsman (September 13, 1999). Fourteen of Scotlands species are experiencing population growth while just five are in decline. For the UK as a whole, thirty-three species are increasing their numbers while 20 are in decline.

Species that are in decline in England include mostly farmland birds, which are being hurt by the intensification of agriculture. In Scotland, however, farmland species are also doing well. According to David Noble of the British Trust for Ornithology, “It is obvious that some birds are doing better in Scotland, and that may be due to different farming practices there.”

“It is also possible climate change has allowed a northern expansion in the range of some birds, but that is only a theory,” said Noble. “More work is need on the causes of these trends.”

Etc.

• Twelve confirmed cases of encephalitis, a form of yellow fever, and three deaths in New York have already sparked rampant speculation about a connection to global warming. An editorial by Mark L. Winston, a professor of biological sciences at Simon Fraser University, claims that global warming caused the outbreak. Hes just getting warmed up, however. According to Winston, global warming is bringing killer bees to the American Southwest; Fire ants from Argentina are now spread from California to Florida; and olive fruit flies from the Mediterranean were discovered in California last year (New York Times, September 11, 1999).

Winston mentions that man imported these pests to the American continent. How he implicates global warming is a mystery. Killer bees were imported to Brazil from Africa in the 1950s, for example. They “have been terrorizing South and Central America and are now spreading throughout the American Southwest,” says Winston. Its should be obvious that a newly introduced insect species could gradually and naturally expand its population and territory quite a bit over a 50-year time period. But Winston will have none of that, even though he doesnt present any evidence that the territorial expansion of these pests are temperature related in any way. He just asserts that its global warming related. The last time we checked, bees and ants and flies were surviving just fine in the cooler northern latitudes.