On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 1:47 PM, j burg <hossradbourne@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Rich faults the anti-GW people, however, for not providing "better
> predictions." It seems to be true that they have not provided the in depth
> computer models used by the IPCC. Their models are more simple -- a rise in
> CO2 is either
>
> 1. Not to be feared
> 2. Not due to human influences
> 3. Or both
>
> CO2 level is now at 368 or so. I wonder if Singer and the other contrarians
> have calculated at what point the level might be too high? Surely there must
> be SOME level (79% comes to mind) at which it has an effect. Anyhing over
> that leaves too little oxygen.
>
> Burgy
>
The physics of global warming has been understood since 1896 when Svante
Arrhenius noted a logarithmic relationship between CO2 (and other so-called
greenhouse gases) and global temperature. When Glenn and others noted that
changes in CO2 effected nothing in the pre-industrial period that is to be
expected because you need a large change. That didn't happen until the 20th
Century. You noted the value of 368 ppm for CO2. CO2 hasn't been above 300
ppm for at least the last 850000 years. Measured global warming was seen in
the 1920s and 1930s (long before air conditioners, urban heat islands, and
latex paint on temperature stations :-) ). During the 1960s and 1970s things
seemed to be cooler than would be expected because of the effects of human
caused aerosols (more popularly know as "smog"). This caused some
contrarians but not the mainstream of the scientific community to declare we
were going into a new ice age. This in turn caused current contrarians to
falsely accuse the mainstream there was no consensus. Nevertheless, the
scientific consensus was still on warming. So let's back up a little and
look at a short historical survey of that consensus.
As I stated previously, papers in the 1920s and 1930s were noting the
effects of CO2 on the climate as predicted by Arrenhius. But before
Arrenhius was John Tyndall who established the greenhouse properties of CO2
in the 1850s. Arrhenius estimated that halving of CO2 would decrease
temperatures by 4 - 5 °C and a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature
rise of 5 - 6 degrees Celsius or 7 - 11 degrees Fahrenheit. Recent (2007)
estimates from IPCC say this value (the climate sensitivity) is likely to be
between 2 and 4.5 degrees. The true climate sensitivity (measured in degrees
C increase for doubled CO2) was only a few degrees different than what
Arrenhius originally predicted. What is remarkable is that Arrhenius came so
close to the most recent IPCC estimate. Arrhenius expected CO2 levels to
rise at a rate given by emissions in his time. Since then, industrial carbon
dioxide levels have risen at a much faster rate: Arrhenius expected CO2
doubling to take about 3000 years; it is now predicted to take about a
century. This is an important fact that few skeptics bother dealing with. It
is the rate of change both in CO2 levels and temperatures that are the most
alarming. Slow climate change causes adaptation in the biosphere, but fast
climate change (in either direction) causes mass extinctions. Many have
argued the stability of the pre-industrial climate was what allowed
civilization to flourish and to go from being hunter/gatherers to being
farmers and from there to form cities.There is no *temperature* for an
optimum climate but there is an optimum *stability*.
In the 1930s G.S. Callendar argued that the CO2 increases were already
happening. E.O. Hulbert in 1931 said that doubling CO2 increases the
temperature 4-7 degrees K. In the 1950s Gilbert Plass separated the effects
of CO2 and water using satellite data. This is important because both CO2
and water are greenhouse gases and it wasn't clear which greenhouse gas was
causing the warming already seen in the 1950s. Plass concluded that it was
CO2. Suess and Revelle in 1957 argued that burning fossil fuels in the
atmosphere was to perform "a great geophysical experiment". The following
is a quote from Time magazine in 1957:
Slide 25
>
> "If the blanket of CO2 produces a temperature rise of only one or two
> degrees, a chain of secondary effects may come into play. As the air gets
> warmer, sea water will get warmer too, and CO2 dissolved in it will return
> to the atmosphere .. possibly raising the temperature enough to melt the
> icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland which will flood the earth's coastal
> lands."
In the early 1960s Charles David Keeling took and inventory of CO2 and by
1965 showed clear evidence of the rise of CO2. Also during the time the
military was studying deliberate weather modification. Their research caused
the National Academies to warn in 1964 of indavertent weather modification.
This in turn caused President Johnson to give the following special message
to Congress in 1965:
This generation has altered the composition of the amosphere on a global
> scale through .. a steady increase in carbond dioxide through the burning of
> fossil fuels.
While some papers thought their might be cooling because of what was later
to be discovered the effect of anthropogenic aerosols the scientific
consensus for anthropogenic global warming continued in the 1970s. The first
director of NOAA, Robert White, headed the Jason project and the National
Research Counsil group on Energy and Climate. The Jason project produced a
report in 1979 called, "The long-term impact of atmospheric carbon dioxide
on climate". The results predicted were so dire that the Carter
Administration asked for a second opinion in what became know as the Charney
Report, more formally titled "An Evaluation of the Evidence for CO2-induced
Climate Change". This report was a meta study done of other scientific
papers done by the National Acadamies of Science. Their conclusion:
Slide 29
>
> "A plethora of studies from diverse sources indicates a consensus that
> climate changes will result from man's combustion of fossil fuels and
> changes in land use."
and
Slide 30
>
> "The close linkage between man's welfare and the climatic regime within
> which his society has evolved suggest that such climatic changes would have
> profound impacts on human society."
>
In 1988, the IPCC was formed to analyze the temperature record, predict
likely effects, predict when the effects would occur and to suggest
solutions. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher would appoint Sir John Houghton
to lead up the first scientific working groups. This is the same John
Houghton who presented at last year's ASA meeting and also made a very
persuasive plea to the National Association of Evangelicals in 2002.
In 1988, the National Energy Policy Act was signed whose purpose was:
".. to establish a national energy policy that will quickly reduce the
> generation of carbon dioxide and trace gases as quickly as is feasible in
> order to slow the pace and degree of atmospheric warming .. to protect the
> global environment"
>
Slide 32 This causes the New York Times to conclude on August 23, 1988 to
say, "The issue of an overheating world has suddenly moved to the forefront
of public concern".
In 1992, the UN Framework on Climate Change was agreed to by the United
States. President George HW Bush called on World leaders to translate the
written document into "concrete action to protect the planet."
At the same time, there was a counter attack. It said there was no "proof"
and no consensus. If there was warming it was due to natural variability. If
it was anthropogenic it wasn't necessarily bad. We can adapt and most
importantly controlling GHG emissions would cost jobs, harm and even destroy
the U.S. economy. This was done by the George C. Marshall Institute formed
by Robert Jastrow in 1984. This originally was set out to be a pro-SDI group
because 6500 physicist opposed it in May 1986. At the time they argued for
balance under the Fairness Doctrine and bullied PBS stations not to air
specials critical of SDI by threatening to sue under the Fairness Doctrine
in 1986 precisely when the Reagan Administraion was dismantling the Fairness
Doctrine.
In 1990, they produced their first paper but not through scientific journal
but through press releases. The conclude concluded there was little on no
evidence for Global Warming and even it it did, technology would "save" us *if
and only if it was unfettered by government regulation*.
In 1992, they went after the UNFCC when a significant fraction of the
scientific community was beginning to detect warming in the climate records.
They again denied the "record" insisting that technology was the silver
bullet and definitely there was no need for treaties regulation, etc.
In 1995, the second IPCC report came out and the Marshall Institute went on
to personal attacks accusing Benjamin Santer in the Wall Street Journal of
making "unauthorized" changes. All the co-authors of the report as well as
the American Meteorological Association backed up Dr. Santer. As will become
a pattern however, the WSJ gave Marshall member, S. Fred Singer the last
word in its slander.
Two years later, Santer read a newpaper article about scientists sponsored
by the tobacco inudstry denying the link of smoking with cancer where the
strategy was to keep "the controversy alive". To Santer this sounded "eerily
familiar". It was no coincidence. Not only were the tactics identical, so
were the players.
Before Fred Seitz was to become part of the Marshall Institute he was a
hired gun for the tobacco industry in the late 70s. He argued then the
charges that tobacco was linked to caner, hardening of the arteries and
carbon monoxide poisoning was "tenuous". RJ Reynolds and other cigarette
manufactors supported Seitz' "research" according to industry insider, Colin
Stokes.
The Marshall Institute did not just oppose global warming. In 1980s Singer
challenged the evidence for acid rain. You will note that this is not a
problem now. Why? Because of a successful cap and trade regimen that solved
the problem. In 1995, Singer testified in Congress that there was "no
consensus" on the link between CFCs and the ozone hole three weeks before
the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Rowldnd, Molina, and Crutzen
establishing that very link. Also note that the Montreal Convention that cut
down CFC use has also decreased the size of the ozone hole. Singer also
defended second hand smoke.
The Marshall Insitute does not do peer review like the rest of the
community. Their "peer review" looks like 10 economists, two Hoover
Instiitute fellows and a minerologist. Throughout all of this there is also
a common theme regardless of the topic. Publish in the popular media not the
scientic journals, stress that the science is uncertain, the concerns are
exaggerated, that unfettered technology will solve the problem and *always,
always, always there is absolutely with no exceptions any need for
government interference.*
Rich Blinne
Member ASA
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Received on Fri Jun 27 13:05:53 2008
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