On the evening of Sunday, August 10, I asked for citations of research papers
in reputable scientific journals that examine the causal link between
anthropogenic carbon dioxide and global warming and that quantified the
extent of this warming.** In most areas of science, when a clearly
articulated theory dominates, a student can nominate several seminal
papers that have influenced and directed thinking in that area.
Many people believe increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide lead
to increases in temperature. This can be demonstrated in a laboratory,
but when you scale up laboratory experiments to the real world, what
happens? We know from ice cores that global temperatures have decreased
in the past even as carbon dioxide has continued to rise. There are
some so-called skeptics who claim that in the real world the radiation
forcing of carbon dioxide is overwhelmed by the more powerful
constraints of evaporation cooling from the tropical oceans.
I cross-posted my request for papers as a comment on John Quiggin’s
blog as I was interested to see what those who follow the issue and
generally subscribe to AWG theory would suggest by way of best papers.
The next morning my request turned into a bet when Michael Duffy
offered to put up $1,000.
Written by Keith Sherwood and Craig Idso, CO2 Science
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
In the March 2008 issue of Physics Today,
Scafetta and West (2008) describe their quest to identify a solar
signal in earth's global temperature record. They begin by noting that
the most recent IPCC report concludes that "the contribution of solar
variability to global warming is negligible, to a certainty of 95%,"
which would appear to heavily stack the deck against them in terms of
their being successful. However, they note that whereas "the
statistical variability in earth's average temperature is interpreted
as noise" by most climate modelers and "thought to contain no useful
information," they believe that "the variations in earth's temperature
are not noise, but contain substantial information about the source of
variability," which they suggest is total solar irradiance or TSI.
With this outlook on the subject, the two
researchers further suggest that "variations in TSI are indicative of
the sun's turbulent dynamics," as represented by "changes in the
number, duration, and intensity of solar flares and sunspots, and by
the intermittency in the time intervals between dark spots and bright
faculae," which variability has the capacity to "move the global
temperature up and down for tens or even hundreds of years." But, as
the saying goes, talk is cheap. So where's the evidence for this belief?
How do you explain that global temperatures according to UN data
have not increased since 1998 and there has been no significant warming
since 1995?
(See: MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen’s March 2008
presentation of data from the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office found
the Earth has had “no statistically significant warming since 1995.”-
(LINK Here and Here)
Are you aware that even the UN IPCC does not consider climate
models to be “predictions” or “forecasts” but merely emission
scenarios?
(See high-profile UN IPCC lead author, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, referred to
climate models as “story lines.” “In fact there are no predictions by
IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers ‘what
if’ projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions
scenarios,” Trenberth wrote in journal Nature’s blog on June 4, 2007.
He also admitted that the climate models have major shortcomings
because “they do not consider many things like the recovery of the
ozone layer, for instance, or observed trends in forcing agents. There
is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any
emissions scenario and no best guess.” (LINK)
The scare: As the
peer-reviewed literature is filled with a growing proportion of learned
papers demolishing the imagined "consensus" that anthropogenic "global
warming" will prove "catastrophic", the less serious newspapers are
looking for new scares to peddle to the feeble-minded.
In mid-August 2008, The Guardian, Britain’s silliest newspaper,
printed an article by Peter Tatchell suggesting that the world’s oxygen
is running out because of humankind’s use of fossil fuels. Atmospheric
oxygen trend from Cape Grim, Tasmania. Tatchell says: “Little or no
attention is being paid to the long-term fall in oxygen concentrations
and its knock-on effects. Compared to prehistoric times, the level of
oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere has declined by over a third and in
polluted cities the decline may be more than 50%. … Much of this
recent, accelerated change is down to human activity, notably the
industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels. … This change in
the makeup of the air we breathe has potentially serious implications
for our health. Indeed, it could ultimately threaten the survival of
human life on earth. …”
The truth: Dr. Roy Spencer, of the University of Alabama at Huntsville,
says: “The O2 concentration of the atmosphere has been measured off and
on for about 100 years now, and the concentration, at 20.95%, has not
varied within the accuracy of the measurements. Only in recent years
have more precise measurement techniques been developed, and the tiny
decrease in O2 with increasing CO2 has been actually measured. But I
believe the O2 concentration is still close to 20.95%. There is so much
O2 in the atmosphere, it is believed not to be substantially affected
by vegetation, but it is the result of geochemistry in deep-ocean
sediments. No one really knows for sure. Since too much O2 is not good
for humans, the human body keeps O2 concentrations down to around 5% in
our major organs. Extra O2 can give you a burst of energy, but it will
harm you (or kill you) if the exposure is too long. It has been
estimated that global wildfire risk would increase greatly if O2
concentrations were much more than they are now. To say that there is
an impending ‘oxygen crisis’ on Earth is the epitome of fear-
mongering.”
Written by Kenneth P. Green, American Enterprise Institute
Monday, 11 August 2008
Expanding ethanol use will not reduce global
warming, bring down gas prices, relieve our dependence on foreign oil,
starve terrorists of funding, restore the family farm, or create jobs.
In fact, using more ethanol increases greenhouse gas production and
local air pollution and is water-intensive as well as land-intensive.
Ethanol--the chemical that gives your booze
its kick--has been used by mankind for a very long time, 8,000 years or
so. Even Stone Age people recognized the value of a good tipple. Of
late, ethanol has been touted as the super-fuel that will reduce global
warming, bring down gas prices, relieve our dependence on foreign oil,
starve terrorists of funding, restore the family farm, create jobs and
basically Save The Planet!
Contrary to popular belief, vastly expanding our use of ethanol fuel
would do few, if any, of these things. But it almost certainly would
increase food prices, greenhouse gas emissions and local air and water
pollution while decreasing our supply of fresh water, consuming more of
our land and destroying more of our ecosystems.
Written by Sam Bond, Environmental Data Interactive
Thursday, 07 August 2008
Acid rain caused by industrial pollution could actually help reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of agriculture, say scientists.
Research led by the Open University's Dr Vincent Gauci suggests that
sulphur-based acid rain from atmospheric pollution could cut the
methane emissions associated with cultivating rice by almost a quarter.
Tonne for tonne, methane is more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of global warming.
Dr Gauci's findings suggest that, ironically, the high levels of
pollution associated with China's rapid industrialisation may actually
be going some small way towards mitigating its soaring CO2 output.
Behind the Science 
