Global warming argument bogus
The global warming debate is not about temperature. Climate always changes. Every 10 years, new statistics are generated for all U.S. cities based on the most recent 30 years of date.
The global warming debate is not about sober scientific understanding.
In the really big picture (eons of time), we only have a few moments of reliable standardized temperature statistics from which to draw relationships and mark trends. Paleoclimatological temperature data is indirectly inferred; modern comparisons do not conclusively prove anything.
The global warming debate is not about finding solutions to problems.
Anthropogenic warming proponents have already decided what the solutions are and are working backward to identify the problems.
No, in fact the great debate isn't a debate at all. It is a pronouncement; a declaration, a one-sided assumption that the world will agree with their fact-finding. Those who disagree with the fundamental theory of a looming manmade global warming catastrophe are subject to shame. They are called names, minimized and treated with d i s g u s t. Dr. Heidi Cullen of the Weather Channel would strip me of my CBM (certified broadcast meteorologist) status because of my opinion.
How did we get to this point where civility in a scientific discourse was so rashly abandoned? It is like the bitter partisanship in government today. Where did this rabid activism come from? It came from the unshakable conviction that we must act now to avoid certain disaster. Extreme zeal in a cause can be good, but it also may blind a person to reason.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently issued their well publicized report accusing mankind of culpability in the warming of the world. I have taken issue with the report, as have many of my meteorological colleagues.
A friend asked, "So, 2,500 scientists are wrong?" I replied, "Yes."
This would not be the first instance of a large body of people being wrong in their belief. There was a time tornado safety included opening windows, mercury was used in topical ointments, smoking was ubiquitous and global cooling was going to kill us all. Not to mention other hysterias, such as Y2K, McCarthyism, Jim Crow and the Spanish Inquisition.
But my biggest concern is the widespread notion that there is a monolithic consensus on the subject. A constant drumbeat of "the science is settled" from every corner of media, government and academia has saturated public opinion. The science is not settled.
There are serious questions regarding carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, which are directly related to temperature fluctuations. I contend they have gone up more than 20 percent in the past 50 years as a result of natural warming, rather than the other way around. Warmer oceans absorb less CO2, thus affecting the carbon cycle balance. Indeed, the greatest influence from a greenhouse gas comes from water vapor (comprising up to 4 percent of the atmosphere in the tropics.) A warmer (or colder) climate is caused by macrostimuli, not by insignificant human input.
Urban development represents less than one half of one percent (0.0044 percent) of the world's surface, which is 70.8 percent ocean. Although our influence may be formidable on a local scale, it comes nowhere close to a commanding interest of the earth.
I believe volcanic eruptions pose a much larger threat than does anything else, bringing about immediate climate cooling. There are many well documented episodes during the past 2,000 years in which crops have failed and people have starved due to volcanic-induced periods of worldwide extreme cold.
When the climate does change, mankind must adapt. During a storm chase, the rule of thumb is to get out of the way of a tornado not to expect I can alter its path or strength.
What about the indisputable computer model predictions of doom? We have enough trouble forecasting tomorrow's weather. This idea that sophisticated models are going to predict with accuracy conditions 100 years from now is really half-baked. In the final analysis, I have found that people will believe what they want to believe. Those who subscribe to human-induced global warming want to believe the hysteria. However, when anyone compels you to agree with them about anything, without dissent or review, it is duress. A red flag should go up.
The IPCC solution is too simple: Stop the CO2 and everything will return to normal.
But why would anyone think mankind has the power to change the world's climate one way or the other? It seems narcissistic and self-congratulatory. Can we also change winter to spring or move the earth into a new orbit? Can a living human be beamed from one place to another, like in Star Trek? Where does science end and science fiction begin in the global warming debate?
Asking the question does not mean I am unenlightened. Rather it demands extraordinary proof to answer this extraordinary assertion.
Skeptics' arguments don't pass the test
Essentially every scientist who actively studies global climate change concludes that human activity is the principal cause of global warming over the past several decades.
Recently this conclusion was summarized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Despite this consensus, a relatively small group of skeptics still exists. Because this group of skeptics is very vocal, they have skewed public opinion and media coverage toward a "the jury is still out" impression, a viewpoint than is simply not justified given the overwhelming evidence supporting human-caused global warming and the failure of the alternative ideas proposed by the skeptics.
Skeptics state that scientists' ignore evidence of natural climate change from the geologic record. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, careful consideration of this evidence has brought to light several possible contenders for driving climate change.
This dataset, in conjunction with more accurate, higher resolution, modern measurements, show that only one of these causes for climate change has dominated over the past several decades. That is an increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide.
For example, the skeptics most often attribute the warming to variations in the sun's output. Fair enough. This alternative idea is testable. It predicts that the sun's output should have increased over the past decades as the Earth's temperature has risen, a prediction that can be compared to new observations according to the rigorous standards of the scientific method. Unfortunately for the skeptics, the modern data show no such thing.
The sun's output has been measured directly by satellites since the late 1970s. These measurements represent a big improvement over the previous attempts to indirectly estimate the sun's output using observations like the number of sunspots. The data are readily accessible on the Web from the U.S. National Geophysical Data Center. The new and clearly better data show that the sun has been remarkably steady over the period corresponding to the vast majority of warming. Clearly, the skeptics' principal explanation for global warming fails a very straightforward test.
Other ideas from the skeptics include variations in the Earth's orbital geometry and in the incidence of cosmic rays that may seed low altitude clouds. These ideas similarly fail scientific tests based on observations relevant to the warming observed during past several decades. Variations in the orbital geometry operate on time scales too slow to affect the warming we see over this time period; direct observation of cosmic rays since the 1950s show no variation that can be correlated to the observed warming.
On the other hand, the IPCC's idea of human-induced climate change passes test after test after test. For example, is a steady increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide observed that correlates with the temperature increase? Yes.
If you calculate the rate of fossil fuel burning, is there enough to produce the half-percent increase in atmospheric concentration that we see every year? Yes.
Are the carbon isotope ratios in the atmosphere changing in accordance to the expected dilution effect when fossil fuels are burned? Yes.
Is carbon dioxide the only greenhouse gas that spends a long enough time in the atmosphere to drive the temperature change rather than being a passive player in the system (like water vapor)? Yes.
The experiment goes on. Given the consensus of the vast majority of climate scientists, and the success of their ideas to date, you can bet on their predictions. Given the failure of the skeptics' natural global warming idea, don't bet on it!
