[asa] "The Earth has hit its temperature ceiling already"~ Habibullo Abdusamatov,

More ~ Janice

Russian Academic Says CO2 Not to Blame for Global Warming!
RIA Novosti ^ | 1/15/2007 | RIA
Posted on 01/20/2007 2:03:47 AM EST by Dallas59
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1770600/posts [refresh browser]

ST. PETERSBURG, January 15 (RIA Novosti) - Rising levels of carbon
dioxide and other gases emitted through human activities, believed by
scientists to trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, are an effect
rather than the cause of global warming, a prominent Russian
scientist said Monday.

Habibullo Abdusamatov, head of the space research laboratory at the
St. Petersburg-based Pulkovo Observatory, said global warming stems
from an increase in the sun's activity. His view contradicts the
international scientific consensus that climate change is
attributable to the emission of greenhouse gases generated by
industrial activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

"Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases
into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar
radiation and a lengthy - almost throughout the last century - growth
in its intensity," Abdusamatov told RIA Novosti in an interview.

"It is no secret that when they go up, temperatures in the world's
oceans trigger the emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere. So the common view that man's industrial activity is
a deciding factor in global warming has emerged from a
misinterpretation of cause and effect relations."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN panel of
thousands of international scientists, widely regarded as an
authority on climate change issues, established a consensus many
years ago that most of the warming experienced over the last
half-century has been attributable to human activities.

However, scientists acknowledge that rises in temperatures can
potentially cause massive increases of greenhouse gases due to
various natural positive feedback mechanisms, for example the methane
released by melting permafrost, ocean algae's reduced capacity to
absorb carbon at higher water temperatures, and the carbon released
by trees when forests dry up.

Abdusamatov, a doctor of mathematics and physics, is one of a small
number of scientists around the world who continue to contest the
view of the IPCC, the national science academies of the G8 nations,
and other prominent scientific bodies.

He said an examination of ice cores from wells over three kilometers
(1.5 miles) deep in Greenland and the Antarctic indicates that the
Earth experienced periods of global warming even before the
industrial age (which began two hundred years ago).

Climate scientists have used information in ice cores, which contain
air samples trapped by snow falling hundreds of thousands of years
ago, providing an ancient record of the atmosphere's makeup, to
establish that throughout the numerous glacial and interglacial
periods on record, temperatures have closely tracked global CO2
concentrations.

The fact that background atmospheric CO2 levels, shown for example by
the famous Keeling curve, displaying precise measurements going back
to 1958, are now known to be well above concentrations experienced in
hundreds of millennia, as displayed by the ice cores, is considered
by most of the scientific community as incontrovertible proof of
mankind's influence on greenhouse gas concentrations.

However, Abdusamatov even disputed the greenhouse effect, claiming it
fails to take into account the effective transmission of heat to the
outer layers of atmosphere.

Scientists have known about the greenhouse effect since the 19th
century. The phenomenon by which gases such as methane and CO2 warm
the troposphere by absorbing some of the infra-red heat reflected by
the earth's surface has the effect of a global thermostat, sustaining
global temperatures within ranges that allow life on the planet to thrive.

But Abdusamatov insisted: "Ascribing 'greenhouse' effect properties
to the Earth's atmosphere is not scientifically substantiated. Heated
greenhouse gases, which become lighter as a result of expansion,
ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away."

Abdusamatov claimed that the upper layers of the world's oceans are -
much to climatologists' surprise - becoming cooler, which is a clear
indication that the Earth has hit its temperature ceiling already,
and that solar radiation levels are falling and will eventually lead
to a worldwide cold spell.

"Instead of professed global warming, the Earth will be facing a slow
decrease in temperatures in 2012-2015. The gradually falling amounts
of solar energy, expected to reach their bottom level by 2040, will
inevitably lead to a deep freeze around 2055-2060," he said, adding
that this period of global freeze will last some 50 years, after
which the temperatures will go up again.

"There is no need for the Kyoto Protocol now, and it does not have to
come into force until at least a hundred years from now - a global
freeze will come about regardless of whether or not industrialized
countries put a cap on their greenhouse gas emissions," Abdusamatov said.

The 1998 Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change, which sets greenhouse gas emission targets for the period up
to 2012, entered into force two years ago following ratification by
141 countries, which together account for over 55% of the world's gas
pollutions. However, most environmentalists now consider its targets
inadequate to enforce the emissions cuts necessary to curb climate change.

Russia ratified the treaty in November 2004, making it legally
binding. But the world's top polluter, the United States, is still
reluctant to sign on for fear the treaty's emission commitments will
slow down the country's economic growth.

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Received on Mon Jan 22 20:31:26 2007