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No Change in Arctic Sea Ice; No Change in Arctic Sea Ice; Enhanced Greenhouse Effect Needed

by William Yeatman on April 3, 2001

in Science

No Change in Arctic Sea Ice

One of the mainstays of the global warming apocalyptics has been that the polar ice caps are melting and the seas are rising. It has even been claimed that the Arctic regions serve as an early warning system that global warming is on its way due to its supposed greater sensitivity to temperature change. In 1999, a paper published in the Geophysical Research Letters by Rothrock et al. suggested that Arctic ice was thinner in the 1990s than it was from 1958 to 1979.

A new study in the March 15 issue of GRL takes a closer look at the evidence. The 1999 study used data collected from submarine cruises from 1993, 96, and 97 and compared it to similar data from 1958 to 1979. The new study by Peter Winsor, with the Department of Oceanography, Earth Science Centre, at Gteborg University in Sweden, “carefully analyzed” the Rothrock results “using the most comprehensive data set presently available to the research community.”

The study concludes, “Draft data from the North Pole, and the Beaufort Sea, and transects between the two areas over a 7-year period from 1991 to 1997 show no evidence of a thinning ice cover.” Winsor goes on to show that by “Combining the mean drafts derived [from another study] from 1986 to 1990 with those from the present study, I conclude that the thickness of sea ice cover has remained on a near-constant level at the North Pole during the 12-year period from 1986 to 1997.”

If the Arctic is an early warning system of global warming as environmentalists claim, then judging by these results greenhouse gas emissions are not having any effect.

No Change in Climate

A new study in the March 29 issue of Nature has cast doubts on claims by environmentalists that the current climate is unprecedented. Indeed, if the results of the study are true, todays climate is typical of past interglacial warm periods.

The study analyzed tree ring data from partially fossilized remains of the conifer Fitzroya cupressoides or Alerce, the worlds second longest living tree. The trees, which can live to be as old as 3,600 years, died about 50,000 years ago. This gives scientists an opportunity to study a long period of the ancient climate system.

“The fine scale of the record reveals climate fluctuations that closely resemble those we are experiencing now, including the 25-year spell of El Nio oscillations,” noted a news story accompanying the study. According to the researchers, “Our study suggests that comparable cycles in tree growth occurred between interstadials of the last glaciation and today, and hence that similar factors have affected the radial growth of Fitzroya since the Late Pleistocene,” and that, “The forcing mechanisms of climate during the interstadials have not changed dramatically.”

Tropical Disease Cannot be Linked to Global Warming

The National Research Council announced a new study on April 2 looking at the impacts of climate change on human health. They found that, “It is not yet possible to determine whether global warming will actually cause diseases to spread,” according to a press release announcing the study. The diseases looked at include mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, malaria and yellow fever, influenza, intestinal disorders, and so on.

“Basic public health protections such as adequate housing and sanitation, as well as the availability of vaccines and drugs, can limit the geographic distribution of diseases regardless of climate,” said the release. “One example of this is along the border between the United States and Mexico, where dengue fever outbreaks are common just south of the Rio Grande in Mexico, but are rarely seen in neighboring regions just north of the river in the United States, mainly because of differences in socio-economic conditions.”

The printed study, Under the Weather: Climate, Ecosystems, and Infectious Disease, wont be released until this summer, but can be read online at http://nationalacademies.org/topnews.

Enhanced Greenhouse Effect Needed

A new study in Astrophysics and Space Science (275: 2001) by internationally renowned scientists Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe presents a new theory of climatic change. According to them, the earths natural state is the extreme coldness of the ice ages, and the earth would remain in such a state forever if not for the periodic collision with large comets.

One-kilometer size comets have a probability of hitting the earth about once every 100,000 years, which coincides with the average periodicity of ice ages. When one of these comets hits the earths oceans, it ejects enough water vapor into the atmosphere to “jerk the earth almost discontinuously out of a long drawn-out ice-age into the beginning of an interglacial.” Afterwards, the earth gradually returns to its normal frozen state.

What are the implications for global warming? According to Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, “We must look to a sustained greenhouse effect to maintain the present advantageous world climate.” They warn, “The renewal of ice-age conditions would render a large fraction of the worlds major food-growing areas inoperable, and so would inevitably lead to the extinction of most of the present human population.” Indeed, “Without some artificial means of giving positive feedback to the climate, …an eventual drift into ice-age conditions appears inevitable,” they said.

They have harsh words for those who support greenhouse gas regulations. “Manifestly, we need all the greenhouse we can get,” they said. “Those who have engaged in uncritical scaremongering over an enhanced greenhouse effect raising the Earths temperature by a degree or two should be seen as both misguided and dangerous.” The current danger “is of a drift back into an ice-age, not away from an ice-age.” For a longer review of the study see www.co2science.org.

Bush Decides Against Regulating CO2; Reactions to the Presidents Decision

by William Yeatman on March 20, 2001

in Politics

Bush Decides Against Regulating CO2

President George W. Bush announced on March 13 that his administration would not seek congressional approval to regulate carbon dioxide emissions produced by electric utilities. In a letter to Senators Hagel, Craig, Helms, and Roberts, Bush said that “important new information” from an Energy Information Administration study “concluded that including caps on carbon dioxide emissions as part of a multiple emissions strategy would lead tosignificantly higher electricity prices”

“At a time when California has already experienced energy shortages, and other Western states are worried about price and availability of energy this summer, we must be very careful not to take actions that could harm consumers,” Bush continued in the letter. “This is especially true given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change and the lack of commercially available technologies for removing and storing carbon dioxide.”

The president also made it clear that he does support changes to the Clean Air Act that would allow regulation using the “multi-pollutant strategy” for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury. Such an approach is part of a “comprehensive and balanced national energy policy that takes into account the importance of improving air quality.”

Bush stated at the beginning of his letter to the four Senators that, “As you know, I oppose the Kyoto Protocol.” And he concluded, “I look forward to working with you and others to address global climate change issues in the context of a national energy policy that protects our environment, consumers, and economy.”

The beginning of the controversy was reported in the March 7 issue of the Cooler Heads Newsletter. Members of the Cooler Heads Coalition played significant roles in calling attention to the issue and in convincing the Bush-Cheney Administration to decide against regulating carbon dioxide emissions. A number of Senators and Representatives, in addition to the four listed above, also raised their concerns. They included Senators Inhofe, Nickles, and Voinovich and Representatives DeLay, Barton, Knollenberg, Emerson, and John Peterson.

Reactions to the Presidents Decision

President Bushs decision not to regulate CO2 emissions prompted immediate reactions from supporters of the Kyoto Protocol around the world. Michael Oppenheimer of Environmental Defense accused Bush of rejecting “the judgment of the worlds leading climate scientists.”

Greenpeace was harsher. “When you put two oil men in the White House, I guess this is what you have to expect,” said Greenpeace Climate Policy Director Bill Hare. “Apparently Mrs. Whitmans environmentally responsible position has not carried the day, and we can expect the Neanderthal, head-in-the-sand rhetoric of Bush to prevail in this administration.” Hare also accused Bush of “rejecting the worldwide scientific consensus on global warming” and “listening to listening to extreme Flat Earth minority viewpoints on the science.”

Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope accused President Bush of “bowing to big business instead of honoring his commitment to our children.” And from the Senate, Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) showed his ignorance by claiming the Bushs decision would lead to dirtier air. “In this case, turnabout is foul play and will mean foul air,” he said at a press conference decrying Bushs decision.

On the other hand, a number of Cooler Heads Coalition members sent out press releases praising President Bushs decision. These included Consumer Alert, Citizens for a Sound Economy, the National Center for Public Policy Research, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Although the majority of newspapers across the country criticized Bushs decision, several applauded it. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution (March 15, 2001) said, “Refusing to call for reductions in CO2 emissions is the most sensible step the president could make.”

It also said, “Last we heard, one needs to establish that there is a problem before implementing a solution. When this nation spends billions of dollars tackling an unnecessary task in the name of environmental protection, it diverts time, energy, money and attention from environmental issues where we truly could make a difference. Environmental groups lose credibility when they cry wolf and denounce the president, who insists environmental policy be based on facts and scientific research.”

The Orange County Register also chimed in quickly (March 16): “The Bush administration made a correct decisionand in some ways a brave onewhen it decided not to ask for emissions reductions of carbon dioxide from American power plants. It represented a willingness to listen to valid concerns about the cost of regulation, to look at the state of science on global warming rather than responding to arguments based on emotional convictions, and to make a common-sense decision that reflects the interests of the vast majority of American consumers rather than an insulated policy elite.Perhaps most unusually for a group of politicians, Mr. Bush and his advisers were willing to say forthrightly that a previous position had been a mistake and to take the heat for admitting it was a mistake.”

Investors Business Daily on March 19 noted the common sense behind Bushs decision. “[T]he evidence on CO2s contribution to global warming is far from clear. Every creature on the earth emits CO2 when they exhale – and theyve been doing so since the first pollywogs climbed out on land. Its also far from clear that some global warming wouldnt benefit mankind. Longer crop seasons could help underdeveloped countries feed their citizens. Warmer climes could reduce stress and mental illness. More arable land could be freed up. Less fossil fuel would be used for heat, meaning less pollution.”

The March 21 Kansas City Star weighed costs and benefits: “Though nobody knows with certainty whether global warming is real or whether its really a threat if it is, what is known with certainty is that raising the regulatory bar for carbon dioxide will raise the price of electric power at a time when America can least afford it.”

Finally, criticism from abroad has been heavy, especially from Europe. The quote that most clearly reveals the European agenda at the Kyoto negotiations came from Margot Wallstrom, the European Unions commissioner for the environment. “This is not a simple environmental issue where you can say it is an issue where the scientists are not unanimous. This is about international relations, this is about economy, about trying to create a level playing field for big businesses throughout the world. You have to understand what is at stake and that is why it is serious.”

RIP: Global Warming Theory; Lindzen Trashes IPCC

by William Yeatman on March 6, 2001

in Science

RIP: Global Warming Theory

Three scientific studies that have recently appeared may well spell the beginning of the end of global warming theory:

1) Water Vapor Feedback

The biggest uncertainty in climate science is how feedbacks affect the climate. Global warming theory posits that a rise in atmospheric CO2 will only cause a slight warming of the atmosphere, on the order of about 1 degree centigrade. This small amount of warming, according to standard global warming theory, speeds up evaporation, increasing the amount of water vapor, the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. This positive feedback is where most of the predicted warming comes from.

A new study in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (March 2000) shows that the reverse is true. The authors find a negative water vapor feedback effect that is powerful enough to offset all other positive feedbacks. Using detailed daily observations of cloud cover from satellites in the tropics and comparing them to sea surface temperatures, the researchers found that there is an “iris effect” in which higher temperatures reduce the warming effect of clouds.

According to a NASA press release about the study, “Clouds play a critical and complicated role in regulating the temperature of the Earth. Thick, bright, watery clouds like cumulus shield the atmosphere from incoming solar radiation by reflecting much of it back into space. Thin, icy cirrus clouds are poor sunshields but very efficient insulators that trap energy rising from the Earths warmed surface. A decrease in cirrus cloud area would have a cooling effect by allowing more heat energy, or infrared radiation, to leave the planet.”

The researchers found that a one degree centigrade rise in ocean surface temperature decreased the ratio of cirrus cloud area to cumulus cloud area by 17 to 27 percent, allowing more heat to escape.

In an interview with Tech Central Station (March 5, 2001, www.techcentralstation.com), Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, the lead author, said that the climate models used in the IPCC have the cloud physics wrong. “We found that there were terrible errors about clouds in all the models, and that that will make it impossible to predict the climate sensitivity because the sensitivity of the models depends primarily on water vapor and clouds. Moreover, if clouds are wrong, theres no way you can get water vapor right. Theyre both intimately tied to each other.” Lindzen argues that due to this new finding he doesnt expect “much more than a degree warming and probably a lot less by 2100.”

2) Black Carbon

The IPCC had to explain in its 1995 Second Assessment Report why its previous predictions of global temperature change were nearly 3 times larger than observed. It concluded that emissions of sulfate aerosols from the burning of coal were offsetting the warming that should be caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Sulfate aerosols, according to this explanation, reflect incoming solar radiation back to space, cooling the planet.

Its Third Assessment Report takes the sulfate aerosol idea even further. It claims that the earth might warm even faster than previously thought. It comes to this conclusion, in part, by assuming that sulfate aerosol emissions will be eliminated by government regulation, giving carbon dioxide free reign.

Sulfate aerosols, then, are a key component of catastrophic global warming scenarios. Without them, the IPCC cannot explain why the earth is not warming according to their forecasts, nor can they reasonably claim that global warming will lead to catastrophes of biblical proportions.

A study in Nature (February 8, 2001) eliminates sulfate aerosols as an explanation to correct the models. The author, Mark Jacobson, with the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, takes a look at how black carbon aerosols affect the earths climate. Unlike other aerosols that reflect solar radiation, black carbon, or soot, absorbs solar radiation, thereby forcing atmospheric temperatures upward.

Until now the warming influence of black carbon was thought to be minor, leading researchers to ignore it. Jacobson, however, finds, “a higher positive forcing from black carbon than previously thought, suggesting that the warming effect from black carbon may nearly balance the net cooling effect of other anthropogenic aerosol constituents.”

There you have it. Black carbon offsets the cooling effect of other aerosols, meaning we are back at square one. We still dont know why the earth has failed to warm like the climate models say it should have warmed. Indeed, all of the prognostications of the IPCC and the pro-global warming, anti-energy activists are wrong if the Nature study is right.

3) Natural Cycles

The IPCCs hockey stick graph has also come under criticism in Science (February 23, 2001). The graph, a temperature record derived from tree rings dating to 1000 AD, shows that global temperatures have remained steady or decreased during the last millennium. Only the industrial age has experienced an anomalous warming, which constitutes the blade of the hockey stick.

This particular temperature record does not show the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) or the Little Ice Age (LIA), two naturally occurring events where the range of global temperature change exceeded that of the 20th century. The hockey stick relegates the MWP to a regional rather than a global phenomenon.

Wallace Broecker, at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, argues that the MWP and the LIA were indeed global phenomena and that “The post-1860 natural warming was the most recent in a series of similar warmings spaced at roughly 1500-year intervals throughout the present interglacial, the Holocene.” He reviews several scientific studies that confirm his arguments.

The claim by the IPCC that the 20th century is the warmest in the last 1000 years just doesnt hold up under scrutiny. The MWP was warmer and, according to the seminal work by Hubert H. Lamb, Climate History and the Modern World, civilization thrived under the warmer climate.

With these three studies, it may be time to bid global warming theory a warm farewell.

“Lindzen Trashes IPCC”

Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a lead author of the IPCC Third Assessment Report, delivered a scathing critique of the IPCC process at a briefing sponsored by the Cooler Heads Coalition on May 1 on Capitol Hill.

What are some of the problems with the IPCC process according to Lindzen? It uses summaries to misrepresent what scientists say; uses language that means different things to scientists and laymen; exploits public ignorance over quantitative matters; exploits what scientists can agree on while ignoring disagreements to support the global warming agenda; and exaggerates scientific accuracy and certainty and the authority of undistinguished scientists.

The “most egregious” problem with the report, said Lindzen, “is that it is presented as a consensus that involves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of scientists and none of them were asked if they agreed with anything in the report except for the one or two pages they worked on.”

Most press accounts characterize the IPCC report as a consensus of 2,000 of the worlds leading climate scientists. The emphasis isnt on getting qualified scientists, said Lindzen, but on getting representatives from 100 countries, only a handful of which do significant research. “It is no small matter,” said Lindzen, “that routine weather service functionaries from New Zealand to Tanzania are referred to as the worlds leading climate scientists. It should come as no surprise that they will be determinedly supportive of the process.”

Perhaps his most devastating critique is of the IPCCs use of statistics. Its infamous hockey stick graph, for instance, shows that global temperatures have been stable or going down in the last 1000 years and that only in the industrial age has there been an anomalous warming of the planet. But if you look at the margin of error in that graph, “You can no longer maintain that statement,” said Lindzen.

Indeed, the margins of error used in the IPCC report are much smaller than traditionally used by scientists. This means that the IPCC is publicizing data that is much less likely to be correct than scientists normally use. The IPCC is playing a statistical shell game that isnt scientifically valid.

In his own Hill briefing a week later, Robert Watson, chairman of the IPCC, admitted that Dr. Lindzen had “trashed the IPCC” at the Cooler Heads briefing.

The Real Greenhouse Effect; CO2 and Biodiversity

by William Yeatman on December 15, 2000

in Science

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.

ECO Newsletter

by William Yeatman on October 12, 2000

COP-6
The Hague
NGO NEWSLETTER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.      CAN – Voices from the Regions

2.      COP6 – Pronk’s Masterpiece?

3.      4.6 Million Voices, and Counting…

4.      Compliance for Non-Techies

5.      The Nature of Sinks

6.      Targets with Holes?

7.      Nuclear – the End is Nigh!

8.      Ignore Florida!

9.      Contacts

10.    Credits

Eco has been published by Non-Governmental Environmental Groups at major international conferences since the Stockholm Environment Conference in 1972. This issue is produced co-operatively by CAN groups attending the climate negotiations in The Hague, The Netherlands, November 2000.

CAN – Voices from the Regions

South-East Asia

We are deeply concerned about the state of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations and our ability as environmental NGOs to ensure a positive outcome. There are so many fundamental elements which are presently lacking from negotiating texts, it’s difficult to imagine that we will be able to make our influence felt. We are most worried about the prominent inclusion of nuclear and sinks as an option to mitigation of climate change. These are not the answers! The impacts are upon us, and it’s not clear we will have a way out if there is not a commitment on the part of the Parties to recognize the urgent threat climate change poses, and the need to respond with real domestic GHG reductions. We have so much left to accomplish in so little time; can we even make a dent?

North America

Three years ago countries around the world agreed to a small first step to reduce the threat of global warming, the Kyoto Protocol. The heart and soul of that Protocol were the targets for industrialized countries. That heart and soul is now very much at risk. Due to the positions of the US, Japan, Canada and Australia, the Protocol may not even result in the reduction it set out to do in Kyoto. This would place the world’s people and creatures under severe threat — a train wreck for the planet. The loopholes of the Kyoto Protocol could be the noose around nature’s neck. Countries must stop this madness, finalize what they agreed to in Kyoto — a strong downward trend in industrialized country emissions — and move forward. The planet cannot wait.

Central and Eastern Europe

Most Central and Eastern European countries have began JI projects and are also looking forward to making profits from emissions trading.

No countries in the region have a national legal framework on climate change. They are also far from ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, which makes the use of these two mechanisms possible.

If pressed hard, Government officials in the CEE admit that they are dragging their feet because they would like the “big guys” at The Hague to lead the way.

This is what makes COP6 so important for this region, which has an amazing potential for GHG emissions reduction, but is in the throes of economic and political transition.

Africa

The severity and frequency of the impacts of climate change on the livelihoods and economies of southern countries are manifesting themselves through several thousands of lives lost in floods, drought-occasioned famines and destroyed properties, damaged infrastructure, closure of industries and loss of employment due to electricity shortages, loss of profits, etc.

This calls for priority in dealing with adaptation issues at COP6, as the very survival of many developing countries is threatened. How costly adaptation is can be illustrated by the example of a certain EU country lying below sea level, which recently increased adaptation spending by US$ 1 Bn. This attests the sheer impossibility of developing countries ever adapting to climate change without financial and technological assistance form the North.

Therefore CNA insists that all three mechanisms be taxed equally for purposes of equity. Additionally, other methods of funding the costs of adaptation need to be discussed and agreed upon urgently at COP6.

Western Europe

In addition to the serious threats to environmental integrity addressed by my colleagues, we need to build a strong alliance of progressive forces to combat climate change. We need a common voice, a louder voice, to help save the most fragile ecosystems in the world such as corals, mangroves and the forests already threatened by climate change. We need an ever more angry voice to fight together with the most vulnerable communities such as low lying island states and drought-stricken regions in the developing world.

Climate Action Network, the most authoritative body on global warming in civil society, has an opportunity, but more than an opportunity, a unique responsibility, to develop more and better links with those forces that support, produce and implement renewable energies, and the various technologies that foster energy efficiency.

There is no point in defending or arguing for dodgy sinks or any flexibility mechanisms as long as developed nations refuse to take the first basic steps to comply with the Kyoto Protocol: cut fossil fuel emissions at home, and do it now!

And here, NGOs should co-operate with the many upcoming green industries: “It’s your chance, wake up and fight with us”. The oily forces of darkness may take a lead in the early rounds, but in the long run we will prevail — we have to!

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COP6 — Pronk’s Masterpiece?

Introducing the master of ceremonies: Jan Pronk, the Dutch Environmental Minister, chair of COP6. It is a very important moment in the negotiations and it is a critical moment in the political career of the chairman.

It’s not an easy job to orchestrate a result that preserves the integrity of the Kyoto Protocol while keeping ‘the climate family’ together. Everyone knows, that there are enormous gaps between the positions of Parties. But there is another, maybe even more important gap between the pace of the negotiations and the growing awareness of the public that climate change is probably already taking place.

With floods, storms and mudslides killing people in countries like Italy, Britain and Switzerland (let alone all those tens of thousands in the South…) more and more citizens are calling for real action against climate change. Already, 58% of UK citizens believe that the current floods have something to do with climate change. The insurance companies also lead us to believe that we are in real trouble. The message is clear: only rules that lead to real reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized countries are acceptable to the atmosphere. Rules that also address the need of those who will suffer most: vulnerable developing countries.

A good master of ceremonies requires tact, feeling for a steady rhythm, and strength to keep instruments in line. Therefore, the chairman has to show wisdom in bridging gaps, but cannot give in to pressures that would undermine the credibility of the Kyoto Protocol. Any compromise on the environmental integrity of the Protocol will mean a compromise of the integrity of the chairman. COP6 could be his masterpiece, or a disastrous disharmony his long political career.

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4.6 Million Voices, and Counting…

As the days count down to November’s crucial climate summit in The Hague, a coalition of Climate Action Network members [leading environmental organizations] launched the first international web- based initiative to give citizens around the world a voice in demanding a halt to global warming. Less than two months old, the web site has already generated more than 4.6 million messages to world leaders.

On August 22nd, “www.climatevoice.org” was launched and is currently supported by more than twenty environmental organizations, including World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and NRDC. Other constituencies are also coming onboard such as the Dutch Red Cross and Oxfam. Hosted by WWF, the site is a group project and aims to send ten million messages from the public to heads of state demanding they use COP6 [the November summit] to reduce their country’s global warming pollution, and to agree to a fair and effective Kyoto global warming treaty to reduce the pollution that causes global warming.

The ten million messages represent a million calls for action for every year of inaction. It has been ten years since the international scientific community issued its first warning about the threats the world faces from climate change. In 1990, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its first scientific report on rising levels of global warming gases and their implications for the future. Though the impacts characteristic of global warming have since become increasingly evident on every continent and in most nations, governments have failed to act to turn down the heat. On the contrary, many of the leading polluters have allowed their emissions to increase while pressing for effective international measures to be watered down.

At www.climatevoice.org visitors can e-mail world leaders to express their concern about global warming. Visitors can also download a petition that can be signed and sent off-line. They can then send a cyber postcard to friends encouraging them to join the campaign. The site can currently be viewed in English, French, and German, and a Spanish version is expected soon.

Now as we gather for COP6 in The Hague, governments must meet their deadline for finalizing rules for operating the Kyoto climate treaty – the only international agreement for reducing emissions of global warming gases from the industrialized world. Countries will then be set to implement measures to reduce the pollution that causes global warming and bring the Protocol into force by 2002 at the Rio+10 meeting.

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Compliance for Non-Techies

Compliance is NOT a technical issue…

… but one of the most crucial issues about which agreement needs to be reached over the next two weeks: Without a sound compliance regime, we will rely entirely on countries’ political will, good faith, and trust to ensure they keep their commitment to reduce GHG emissions. However, if the pitiful number of effective national plans proposed to date is any measure of political will to reduce domestic emissions, this is no safeguard at all.

So, as global governance does not seem to be mature enough yet to proceed on trust, the question becomes: will the international community be mature enough to impose upon itself rules of control and — shall we mention the taboo word — penalties for cases of misbehaviour?

For CAN, one thing is clear: A Kyoto Protocol with The Hague Rules will be not much more than peeling wallpaper if there are no binding consequences which will ensure that the climate is made whole and targets are met.

PS: to all the states bent on trading (either to earn money, or to escape more stringent action at home): remember, a market only functions on the basis of legal securities — if you want to trade, you need penalties (whether you know it yet or not).

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The Nature of Sinks

Anyone who has followed the scientific discussions in relation to the behaviour of the carbon cycle in response to global warning, and is also concerned about the future of the Amazon forests, would have found last Thursday’s issue of Nature more than a little disturbing.

Whilst it is well known that forests are also likely to be subject to climate impacts themselves, the recent climate modelling study reported in Nature projects a dramatic collapse of the Amazonian rainforest as consequence of climate change. This would be begin within a few decades, if fossil fuel emissions increase as per business as usual, due to a combination of reduced precipitation and to increased respiration as a consequence of warming.

The study by Cox and others from the Hadley Centre couples a carbon cycle model with a climate model. It finds that there are potentially huge positive feedbacks from warming. In response to projected warming, the biosphere releases huge amounts of carbon to the atmosphere, significantly accelerating climate change over the next 100 years. Driven by business as usual emissions, the biosphere acts as a net sink until around 2050, whereafter it turns into an overall source. As a result, the business-as-usual concentration increase, without considering the terrestrial biosphere feedbacks, is magnified dramatically by 250 ppmv by the year 2100. The global temperature increase for business-as-usual emissions by 2100 is increased from 5.5C to about 8C as a consequence of this feedback.

As Parties meet in The Hague to adopt crucial decisions in relation to the inclusion of sinks activities under Article 3.4 or under the CDM, the above results, however provisional, should give serious pause for thought. The scientific evidence for a serious risk of a large potential positive feedback from the terrestrial biosphere in response to global warming is growing. It is unsafe to assume that we can rely on a growing sink capacity in the future to help stabilize atmospheric CO2 or to assume that extra carbon stored in the biosphere over coming decades will be permanently kept out of the atmosphere.

* “Acceleration of global warming due to carbon-cycle feedbacks in a coupled climate model” by Peter M. Cox, Richard A. Betts, Chris D. Jones, Steven A. Spall & Ian J. Totterdell, Nature , Vol. 408 (9 November 2000) pp 184-187.

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Targets with Holes?

Over the next fourteen days here in The Hague, the Kyoto Protocol is in danger of being sunk by attempts from several industrialised countries to back out of their responsibility to make real cuts in emissions.

Several “loopholes” risk being left open at COP6. The adoption of just one of these loopholes could seriously undermine the emission reduction targets of industrialised nations (OECD countries have agreed to reduce their emissions by 6.9% in 2010 in comparison to 1990). Combined, these loopholes would mean that no action at all would be needed.

For example, unlimited trading of so-called “Hot Air” could allow OECD countries to emit 5% more than without such trading. Furthermore, the credits that could accrue from coal, gas, oil, nuclear (!) and large hydro energy projects under the Clean Development Mechanism are estimated to more than outweigh the targets that OECD countries agreed to in Kyoto to reduce their emissions below 1990 levels.

However, by far the biggest threat to the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol are the so-called “sinks”, the attempt made by some countries to claim emission credits for carbon that is being stored in forests and soils.

During the long vacation since Lyon, we have studied the data that countries have provided on sinks. (A fully revised loophole analysis from Greenpeace, with country specific data, will be available soon). Our initial fears were not exaggerated. We doubt that negotiators are fully aware of the magnitudes of the loopholes they are potentially about to agree upon.

Bad definitions for Afforestation, Reforestation and Deforestation under Article 3.3 (e.g. the FAO Activity based definitions) could allow OECD countries to increase emissions as much as unlimited “Hot Air” trading (5%). If they were to receive credit for all the reported Article 3.4 sinks, they would be able to increase their emissions by a further 10% on 1990 levels.

Most outrageous is the fact that the USA could meet a staggering 63% of its emission reduction requirements (below business as usual levels) if accounting of these Art. 3.4 sinks were permitted. Note, these estimates are based on the governments’ own figures, and many countries have not reported at all. Independent studies have estimated them to be much higher. Given this, even a narrow definition of Art. 3.4 activities could invalidate the already small incentives that the Kyoto Protocol could have to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. In addition to this, and according to estimates by the IPCC Special Report on Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF), the potentials for sinks under the CDM are at least as big as the ones from Art. 3.3 and 3.4.

It remains to be seen whether these loopholes will be left open — to do so would be to allow parties to avoid real emission cuts — or whether the negotiations in The Hague prove successful in closing them. Each has the potential to seriously undermine the ultimate objective of the Kyoto Protocol: preventing serious climate change.

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Nuclear — the End is Nigh!

This was the year that the nuclear industry cemented its place as the Millenium Dome of energy technologies. Turkey abandoned long- held plans to develop nuclear power and is now pushing wind. Taiwan cancelled construction of its fourth reactor. And for the first time since the 1950s there is no reactor under construction or planned in North America or Western Europe. Turkey’s Prime Minister, in making the announcement to kill off the nuclear program before it killed off Turkey’s economy, posed the simple question: “Why would Turkey build nuclear when everyone else is turning away from it?”.

The US, which is the main promoter of nuclear power in the CDM, should ask themselves a similar question — why are they promoting nuclear power when they have not ordered a new nuclear reactor since 1978, suffered the second worst nuclear accident after Chernobyl, and spent billions unsuccessfully trying to solve the problem of radioactive waste? As China said to Westinghouse when Westinghouse was trying to sell them a new reactor model: “if it’s so good, why aren’t you building it yourselves?”.

The answer of course goes to the heart of the push to include nuclear power in the CDM — orders are scarce and the industry is flailing around for help. At September’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) general conference, some of the few developing countries still considering nuclear power spelled out the link very clearly. India, Pakistan, China and Vietnam presented papers which warned that if they do not receive CDM credits for nukes, new construction will either be reduced or cease altogether. Just in case anyone still didn’t get it, the IAEA underlined the point with the extraordinary admission that “nuclear would not be used by most developing countries in the absence of the CDM mechanism”.

But the IAEA presentations pose another, more disturbing question about having nuclear power in the CDM. The industrialised countries which are pushing hardest for nuclear power to be in the CDM — the US, Japan and Canada — refuse to export reactors to India and Pakistan. The UK and France have also declared them off- limits. The reason is that neither India nor Pakistan has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), refuse to open their nuclear facilities to full-scope anti-proliferation safeguards inspections, and are actively developing nuclear weapons. It’s a particularly touchy issue for the US and Canada, as they provided nuclear technology to India in the 1960s and 70s which India used as the basis for their bomb program, despite promising they wouldn’t.

So why, here in The Hague, are these same industrialised countries now pushing so hard to turn the CDM into a subsidy for the India and Pakistan nuclear programs? Are the US, Japan and Canada really proposing to provide political and financial support through the Kyoto Protocol to two nuclear industries against which they are currently imposing sanctions? Not only is this an embarrassingly inconsistent policy, but one which threatens to undermine global efforts to promote non-proliferation.

To mark the opening of COP6, anti-nuclear groups are organising a march today against nuclear power in the CDM, from Malieveld to the Conference Centre starting at 13:00 today.

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Ignore Florida!

And the winner is… well we do not know that yet, but we do know that uncertainty about the outcome of the US presidential election should not change Parties’ goals or stances at COP6. The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated on the watch of the Clinton/Gore Administration. The Clinton Administration is in the White House until January 20th and has the mandate to finalize the deal. They should therefore be treated as every other delegation and not be singled out for any “special status” (except, of course, that they are trying to water down the Protocol more than any other country.)

Did the elections have an impact on the likelihood of US ratification? It did result in some changes in the make up of the US Senate where two Protocol foes, Senators Abraham and Ashcroft, lost their bids for reelection and two new Protocol supporters, Senators Bill Nelson and Hillary Rodham Clinton were elected. When you couple this with growing public demand for action on global warming and more businesses taking voluntary action, you have a mandate for the US delegation to ensure that negotiations in the Hague result in an environmentally sound Protocol — one that causes real emissions reductions in developed countries.

So, it is fine to keep reading about the votes, but whatever the outcome — and whenever it comes — countries need to negotiate hard with the current Administration and finalize a deal in the Hague that will ensure that developed country domestic industrial emissions take a downturn. Only an outcome with real environmental integrity will have the public support necessary to win ratification — regardless of who is President.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Eco can be contacted at the Boulevard Hotel Seinpostduin 1-2, 2586 EA Scheveningen. Tel: +31 (0)70-35 40 067, Fax: +31 (0) 70-35 52 574 E-mail: asieghart@gn.apc.org

ECO is available electronically via the following routes: World Wide Web http://www.igc.org/climate/Eco.html anonymous ftp ftp://ftp.igc.org/pub/ECO APC networks <climate.news> and <climate.forum> Usenet newsgroup sci.environment email mlist.ecix1-subscribe@igc.topica.com

For information about ECO on WWW or adobe Acrobat files, contact Richard Elen, email: relen@brideswell.com

For information about electronic mail, conference distribution, and ftp availability of ECO, contact: Lelani Arris, email: larris@mcbridebc.net

A glossary of terms used in ECO can be obtained via anonymous ftp (see above) or by email from larris@mcbridebc.net

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CREDITS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

Editorial/Production: Alister Sieghart, Gilbert Arum, Torsten van Geest

World Wide Web Edition: Richard Elen

Electronic Distribution: Lelani Arris for EcoNet

Assistance from: Roda Verheyen, Jennifer Morgan, Stephan Singer, Atiq Rahman, Nathalie Eddy, Grace Akumu, Bill Hare, Anja Koehne, Ben Pearson, Katherine Silverthorne, Vladimir Dvoretzky, Sam Ferrer, Ilse Chang, Christoph Bals, Manfred Treber.

Published by: The Climate Action Network.

The Climate Action Network would like to thank WWF International, Greenpeace International, the Swedish NGO Secretariat for Acid Rain, the National Environmental Trust, Environmental Defense, The Glastonbury Festival for Contemporary Performing Arts, the Centre for International Environmental Law, Climate Network Europe, and the David Suzuki Foundation.

With resources contributed by Milieudefensie and APC Networks.

An Independent Review of the IPCCs Third Assessment Report; National Assessment Under Fire; Sinks: A Short-term Fix?

by William Yeatman on June 3, 2000

in Science

An Independent Review of the IPCCs Third Assessment Report

A dozen climate experts briefed a large audience in the U. S. Capitol on May 30 on flaws and problems in the IPCCs Third Assessment Report. The briefing, “Whats Wrong with UN Climate Science?” was sponsored by the Cooler Heads Coalition and the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP).

The speakers, many of whom are technical reviewers of the IPCC report, challenged key areas of the 1000-page draft report and the main conclusions of the seven-page Summary for Policy Makers.

Vincent Gray, an atmospheric scientist from New Zealand, criticized the IPCC’s reliance on the surface temperature record, which Gray has concluded is unreliable. Large urban areas consistently show warming over the last 100 years, whereas rural areas show no temperature increases, which suggests that cars, heated buildings, air traffic and other human factors have skewed the ground data upward. Moreover, Gray argued, even rural areas are not free of increased human activity that can corrupt temperature readings.

Hugh Ellsaesser, a climatologist now retired from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said that the water vapor feedback effect, which the IPCC claims is magnifying global warming, is actually causing cooler temperatures over the tropics and subtropics.

S. Fred Singer, president of SEPP and organizer of the briefing, contradicted the often-repeated claim that the past century was the warmest in 1000 years. Singer summarized the findings of Wibjorn Karlen, a paleoclimatologist from the University of Stockholm, who had been scheduled to speak. The “warmest in a thousand years” claim is based on a highly selective use of tree ring data, which is contradicted by much other data, including recent bore holes in the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps.

Norwegian Paal Brekke of the European Space Agency showed how the IPCC report underestimates the effects of solar fluctuations on temperature variability.

Peter Dietze, a consulting engineer from Germany, argued that “The IPCC assumes carbon dioxide concentrations that are at least 50 percent too high, and effects for CO2 that are at least three times too high.” He asked, “If the actual CO2 increase is just 0.4 percent annually, why does the IPCC assume a 1 percent increase and then expect us to accept its computer model conclusions as valid?”

Gerd-Rainer Weber, a climatologist from Germany, concluded that relying on the predictive capability of computer models was a “wild gamble.”

Tom Segalstad, a geochemist at the University of Oslo, showed that the preindustrial level of carbon dioxide of 280 parts per million was not the natural level, but was very low compared to most past eras. And plant and animal life has prospered at much higher CO2 levels.

Keith Idso of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change in Arizona argued that hundreds of agricultural and biological experiments have confirmed that increased levels of carbon dioxide lead to much higher levels of plant growth and food production and increasing biodiversity.

Finally, Ross McKitrick, an economist at the University of Guelph in Canada, pointed out that the Kyoto Protocol would not reduce global warming measurably, yet would impose tremendous costs on society. This makes no sense because it wastes money on relatively benign global warming concerns that could be spent on real environmental problems. His solution would be to create a global warming fund of $1 billion. Assuming average earnings from investments, by 2050 the amount would increase to about $30 billion and by 2100 to nearly $900 billion. Anyone who could prove damages from global warming could then seek compensation from the fund.

National Assessment Under Fire

The U.S. National Assessment on the Impacts of Climate Change, to be released this summer, is coming under increasing criticism. An article in the Detroit News (May 28, 2000) gives a good overview of the reports fundamental weakness the attempt to predict regional and local impacts of global warming.

According to the article, the report attempts to show “the effects of global warming in the United States, predicting droughts, floods and extreme weather region by region.” Critics argue that we dont know enough to make such predictions, however.

A draft of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change notes that, “Despite recent improvements and developments, regionalization research is still a maturing process and the related uncertainties are poorly known. Therefore, a coherent picture of regional climate change via available regionalization techniques cannot yet be drawn.”

“We simply cant forecast well enough on a continental or smaller scale to say that we know what will happen,” said William Gutowski, a meteorologist at Iowa State University and a contributing author of the UN report. “Policy should not be made based on predictions that Iowa will have heat waves or floods.”

Linda Mearns, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a participant in the National Assessment process, defended the report: “Sure, uncertainties increase as you go to a finer scale, but I don’t think the report is on any shakier ground than any other analysis.” Good point.

Sinks: A Short-term Fix?

The World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) has recently released a report that claims that the United States, Canada, and Russia could meet 90 percent of the total developed country Kyoto targets through unlimited use of plant and soil sequestration. “A total of 260 million tons of CO2 would be absorbed per year by the use of sinks in the three countries, thereby achieving about 90 percent of the targets imposed on the worlds industrialized countries,” notes the Japan Weekly Monitor (May 22, 2000).

WWF spokesmen have reservations about the use of sinks, however. “While preventing the emission of carbon dioxide is permanent, sequestering carbon pollution is a cheap, short-term fix that fails to address a long-term problem,” said Jennifer Morgan, director of WWFs Climate Change Program. “The scientific uncertainty of sequestration makes sinks unreliable and dependence on them for meeting Kyoto targets unsound.”

According to three new studies in Nature (April 20, 2000), carbon sequestration may not just be a short-term fix after all. Trees, for example, both absorb and release CO2. The absorbed CO2 is stored in the trees tissues. Expiration mainly occurs with the bacterial decomposition of organic matter in soil, notes the World Climate Report (May 22, 2000).

Currently, forests are net sinks of CO2. But it is thought that increasing temperatures would accelerate respiration to the point where forests actually become net contributors to the greenhouse effect, a positive feedback that would accelerate global warming.

One of the Nature studies found that, “Decomposition rates were remarkably constant across a global-scale gradient in mean annual temperature, [that] decomposition rates for forest soils are not controlled by temperature limitations to microbial activity, and that increased temperature alone will not stimulate the decomposition of forest-derived carbon in mineral soil.”

Another study found, “For single sites our datashow a significant relationship between temperature and ecosystem respiration for both short and annual time series. However, when a plot of [respiration] versus temperature is drawn across all sites the relationship is not significant, indicating that mean annual air temperature may not be an important contributing factor to forest ecosystem respiration on a broader scale.”

The third study uses an ecosystem model for coniferous forests to conclude that under a scenario where there is no long-term effect of temperature on respiration, forests may become more effective CO2 sinks in the future. The study asks, “Does this [new research] mean that the doomsday view of runaway global warming now seems unlikely? We hope so.”

CBS Hot Air Watch

 

CBS EVENING NEWS

May 31, 200

Dan Rather, anchor: Tonights Eye on America is a hard-news look at a global corporate giant in fossil fuels. Protesters including some stockholders are accusing ExxonMobil of a corporate dinosaur attitude about the dangers of global warming that may be linked to fuel emissions. CBS Jim Axelrod has been sorting the facts from the smoke on this.

Protesters: (In unison) No planet, no dividends!

Jim Axelrod reporting: In Dallas this morning, a couple of dozen protesters tried to get the ear of one of the biggest and most powerful corporations on earth.

Unidentified Man: When should ExxonMobil stop global warming?

Protesters: (In unison) Now!

Axelrod: If theres a growing consensus that greenhouse gases are raising global temperatures, these people say executives at ExxonMobil are not about to embrace it. Is ExxonMobil any different on the issue of global warming than any other of the big oil companies?

Sister Pat Daly (ExxonMobil Shareholder and Activist): Theyre incredibly different. They have absolutely isolated themselves on this.

Axelrod: Pat Dalys not a tree-hugger. Shes a shareholder and a nun who represents clergy-based pension funds with a $ 15 million stake in ExxonMobil.

Sister Daly: Global warming is happening.

Axelrod: Today, she and a small chorus of critics asked ExxonMobil to join the growing number of companies saying global warming is here, its real and we need to act now.

Sister Daly: Theyre saying that theres not enough science. They will tell you, “Were concerned about global warming,” but theyre not going to admit that its actually happening.

Mr. Lee Raymond (CEO, ExxonMobil): Were going to follow the science. Were not going to follow what is politically correct.

Axelrod: Other oil giants like Shell and BP Amoco have pledged to operate more efficiently and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to 10 percent below their 1990 levels. Dupont Chemicals has gone even further, promising a 65 percent reduction. ExxonMobil, on the other hand, has no such targets.

Professor Michael McElroy (Harvard University): They simply leave the public with the view that, “Gee, we don’t know enough to do anything.”

Axelrod: Mike McElroy isnt an activist. Hes an academic and a Harvard professor of environmental studies.

Prof. McElroy: In terms of honest assessment of the science, yeah, this is a serious problem, time to act. Exxon is leaning to the side of inaction.

Mr. Frank Sprow (Vice President, ExxonMobil): This is complicated. Dont believe statements that say its clear that things are warming. Its not clear.

Axelrod: The company is taking this idea to the public in a series of ads, saying views on warming are, quote, “just as changeable as your local weather forecast.”

Your assessment of the threat, the credibility of the threat, has that evolved?

Mr. Sprow: Id say thats unchanged over the last several years.

Axelrod: Todays attempts to change the companys views on global warming were turned back, leaving a small band of critics with little to do but shout. In Dallas, Im Jim Axelrod for Eye on America.

Climate Flip-Flop; Climate Change Certainty Overstated

by William Yeatman on January 31, 2000

in Science

Climate Flip-Flop

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

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

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

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

Climate Change Certainty Overstated

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

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

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

Kyoto Goals Difficult to Meet

by William Yeatman on December 7, 1999

in Blog

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

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

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

Astronomical Cycles and Global Warming; Coral Reefs Rebound; Disease Not Due to Global Warming; No More Extreme Weather

by William Yeatman on November 24, 1999

in Science

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).

Pew Runs for Cover; IPCCs Draft Report Available; Federal Budgets Kyoto Outlays; University Students Gunning for GCC

by William Yeatman on November 24, 1999

in Politics

Pew Runs for Cover

As reported in our last issue, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in a letter from Jack Kemp, challenged the Pew Center on Climate Change, a major left-wing advocate of energy controls, to a series of scientific debates in Washington and other cities, “to review the evidence for and against Kyoto in a more thoughtful fashion.” The Pew Center has now responded.

Eileen Claussen, the President and Chairman of the Board of the Pew Center, wrote in response to the challenge, “The Pew Center was founded to advance the broader discussion surrounding climate change not the Kyoto Protocol with credible and thoughtful analyses that would lead to realistic solutions to a serious problem.”

She goes on to say that “The Center has also initiated a series of peer-reviewed studies [that] have helped define the credible parameters within which reasonable differences can be considered by those with a stake in the issue (our emphasis).” Translation: The science is in. Manmade global warming is real. The only reasonable difference of opinion can be in what to do about it. The claim of peer-review is dubious. The reviewers were most likely selected because their viewpoint matched Pews, not to provide an objective evaluation.

According to Miss Claussen, “An adversarial forum on the Kyoto Protocol would not do justice to the scale and complexities of the climate change issue. What is needed is serious and informed discussion (our emphasis).” Miss Claussen claims, therefore, that the science behind the global warming theory is no longer a topic of “serious” debate. “For these reasons, we respectfully decline your invitation to a debate on Kyoto,” wrote Miss Claussen.

IPCCs Draft Report Available

Those who follow the global warming debate have noticed that the evidence supporting catastrophic scenarios becomes weaker each year. But dont expect the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes third assessment report to reflect that reality, however.

According to the New Scientist (November 20, 1999), the draft of the IPCCs third assessment report takes quite a different view. “Unlike the last IPCC assessment five years ago, which concluded merely that the balance of evidence suggested that global warming was caused by humans, the latest report unequivocally points to humans as the culprits.”

The report claims that the world has been warming at a rate of 2 degrees C per century since 1976, and that this rate is “unprecedented” based on data from the past millenium. “Whats more,” reports the New Scientist, “climate modeling studies in the past five years all show that the patterns of warming match predictions based on the greenhouse effect much better than those based on alternative theories.”

Perhaps the most startling claim of the draft report is that even though solar influence is probably responsible for some of the warming experienced in the first half of the century, “Based on these factors alone temperatures would actually have fallen during the past two decades,” reports the New Scientist.

Other predictions include a collapse of the Greenland ice sheet over the next 1000 years and a subsequent rise in sea level of 7 meters and that forests may exhibit a “positive feedback” effect. After absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, forests could succumb to heat stress and release their carbon. The draft of the IPCC report is available on the web at www.meto.gov.uk/sec5/CR_div/ipcc/wg1/drafts.

Federal Budgets Kyoto Outlays

The Clinton-Gore Administration has been successful in gaining Congresss approval of increased funding to combat global warming, according to a White House press release. “The budget provides $1.1 billion for research and development of clean energy through the Climate Change Technology Initiative, including a 7 percent increase for energy efficiency investments to reduce pollution, create jobs, and save consumers money.”

The press release also boasts of extending tax credits for wind and biomass energy production through 2001. “These tax credits encourage no- (wind) and low- (biomass) emission energy production. The biomass tax credit encourages farmers to grow certain materials that can be burned to produce energy. Producing energy from wind and biomass preserves scarce energy resources and reduces our reliance on imported oil.” Finally, the administration claims that it was the last line of defense against attempts “to block common-sense actions to reduce greenhouse gas pollution” (U.S. Newswire, November 18, 1999).

University Students Gunning for GCC

“UCLAs undergraduate student government has approved a resolution urging the University of California Regents to divest itself of holdings of industrial and manufacturing firms that the students say contribute to global warming,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Undergraduate Student Affairs Council voted 9-2 to divest holdings of Exxon, Ford, and General Motors, which are members of the Global Climate Coalition. Also, 58 UCLA faculty members have sent a letter to the regents urging them to divest holdings in GCC companies.

Students and faculty members of Grinnell College in Iowa have also signed a letter urging the trustees to “avoid investing any of the schools billion-dollar endowment fund in companies that oppose limits on greenhouse gas emissions.” The letter signed by members of a student group called “Free the Planet” and 28 faculty members said that they are opposed to investments in GCCs member companies.

Grinnell officials say that the college has not invested in any of these companies. The trustees will consider the proposal, however. Grinnell student Bill Holland says his group wants “the trustees to take a formal stand against investing in the firms,” as well as a resolution from the student government (The Des Moines Register, November 12, 1999).

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