Date: Thu Jun 15 2006 - 09:16:19 EDT
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Looks like Canada will be getting up to speed
soon - this Canadian BSR news outlet continues to
gain in popularity :) ~ Janice
Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate
catastrophe "The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmists
Canada Free Press
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm
| June 15, 2006 | Tom Harris
"Scientists have an independent obligation to
respect and present the truth as they see it," Al
Gore sensibly asserts in his film "An
Inconvenient Truth." With that outlook in mind,
what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie?
Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical
Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia
gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising
assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are
so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply
incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."
But surely Carter is merely part of what most
people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change
skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?
No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified
non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group
climate experts who contest the hypothesis that
human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are
causing significant global climate change.
"Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why?
Because what Gore's "majority of scientists"
think is immaterial when __only a very small
fraction__ of them actually work in the climate field.
Even among that fraction, many focus their
studies on the impacts of climate change;
biologists, for example, who study everything
from insects to polar bears to poison ivy. "While
many are highly skilled researchers, they
generally do not have special knowledge about the
causes of global climate change," explains former
University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr.
Tim Ball. "They usually can tell us only about
the effects of changes in the local environment
where they conduct their studies."
This is highly valuable knowledge, but doesn't
make them climate change cause experts, only climate impact experts.
So we have a smaller fraction.
But it becomes smaller still.
Among experts who actually examine the causes of
change on a global scale, many concentrate their
research on designing and enhancing computer
models of hypothetical futures. "These models
have been consistently wrong in all their
scenarios," asserts Ball. "Since modelers concede
computer outputs are not "predictions" but are in
fact merely scenarios, they are negligent in
letting policy-makers and the public think they
are actually making forecasts."
We should listen most to scientists who use real
data to try to understand what nature is actually
telling us about the causes and extent of global
climate change. In this relatively small
community, there is no consensus, despite what Gore and others would suggest.
Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear:
Appearing before the Commons Committee on
Environment and Sustainable Development last
year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist
Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no
meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and
Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time
frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten
times higher than they are now, about 450 million
years ago, the planet was in the depths of the
absolute coldest period in the last half billion
years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the
basis of this evidence, how could anyone still
believe that the recent relatively small increase
in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"
Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining
what his research and "hundreds of other studies"
reveal: on all time scales, there is very good
correlation between Earth's temperature and
natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.
Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher
at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor
in marine geology, University of Helsinki, takes
apart Gore's dramatic display of Antarctic
glaciers collapsing into the sea. "The breaking
glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon
which is due to the normal advance of a glacier,"
says Winterhalter. "In Antarctica the temperature
is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice
front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break
off in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is
deep enough icebergs will form."
Dr. Wibjörn Karlén, emeritus professor, Dept. of
Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology,
Stockholm University, Sweden, admits, "Some small
areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up
recently, just like it has done back in time. The
temperature in this part of Antarctica has
increased recently, probably because of a small
change in the position of the low pressure systems."
But Karlén clarifies that the 'mass balance' of
Antarctica is positive - more snow is
accumulating than melting off. As a result, Ball
explains, there is an increase in the 'calving'
of icebergs as the ice dome of Antarctica is
growing and flowing to the oceans. When Greenland
and Antarctica are assessed together, "their mass
balance is considered to possibly increase the
sea level by 0.03 mm/year - not much of an effect," Karlén concludes.
The Antarctica has survived warm and cold events
over millions of years. A meltdown is simply not
a realistic scenario in the foreseeable future.
Gore tells us in the film, "Starting in 1970,
there was a precipitous drop-off in the amount
and extent and thickness of the Arctic ice cap."
This is misleading, according to Ball: "The
survey that Gore cites was a single transect
across one part of the Arctic basin in the month
of October during the 1960s when we were in the
middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were
done in the warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology."
Karlén explains that a paper published in 2003 by
University of Alaska professor Igor Polyakov
shows that, the region of the Arctic where rising
temperature is supposedly endangering polar bears
showed fluctuations since 1940 but no overall
temperature rise. "For several published records
it is a decrease for the last 50 years," says Karlén
Dr. Dick Morgan, former advisor to the World
Meteorological Organization and climatology
researcher at University of Exeter, U.K. gives
the details, "There has been some decrease in ice
thickness in the Canadian Arctic over the past 30
years but no melt down. The Canadian Ice Service
records show that from 1971-1981 there was
average, to above average, ice thickness. From
1981-1982 there was a sharp decrease of 15% but
there was a quick recovery to average, to
slightly above average, values from 1983-1995. A
sharp drop of 30% occurred again 1996-1998 and
since then there has been a steady increase to
reach near normal conditions since 2001."
Concerning Gore's beliefs about worldwide
warming, Morgan points out that, in addition to
the cooling in the NW Atlantic, massive areas of
cooling are found in the North and South Pacific
Ocean; the whole of the Amazon Valley; the north
coast of South America and the Caribbean; the
eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caucasus and
Red Sea; New Zealand and even the Ganges Valley
in India. Morgan explains, "Had the IPCC used the
standard parameter for climate change (the 30
year average) and used an equal area projection,
instead of the Mercator (which doubled the area
of warming in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic
Ocean) warming and cooling would have been almost in balance."
Gore's point that 200 cities and towns in the
American West set all time high temperature
records is also misleading according to Dr. Roy
Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at The
University of Alabama in Huntsville. "It is not
unusual for some locations, out of the thousands
of cities and towns in the U.S., to set all-time
records," he says. "The actual data shows that
overall, recent temperatures in the U.S. were not unusual."
Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's
activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US
science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of
whom know (but feel unable to state publicly)
that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."
In April sixty of the world's leading experts in
the field asked Prime Minister Harper to order a
thorough public review of the science of climate
change, something that has never happened in
Canada. Considering what's at stake - either the
end of civilization, if you believe Gore, or a
waste of billions of dollars, if you believe his
opponents - it seems like a reasonable request. ~
Noted here, among other places, also:
Gore's Bad Science--Scientists respond to Al's An Inconvenient Truth.
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