Global Warming - Another View

In his testimony before Senator Inhofe’s Senate committee in the spring of 2007, Al Gore said that the previous winter had been the warmest on record.  Senator Inhofe countered that the spring of 2007 was the coldest spring in 20 years, and that 183 coldest temperature records had been set. Although the major media have been sounding the Global Warming mantra for some time now, we need to use our intelligence and best judgment to see where the climate situation really stands.

Many climate scientists insist that climate always changes, that it is the nature of climate to change, and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) has never driven climate change. Professor Tim Patterson, Dept. of Earth Sciences at Carlton University, says that climate is and always has been variable, continually. There was a “Little Ice Age” between 1400 and 1900 AD. And there was a “Middle Warming Period” from 500 to 1400 AD. These were not caused by human activities.

The “MBH-98 Hockey Stick Curve”, used by Al Gore in his “Inconvenient Truth”, has been discredited completely. It has been shown by Dr. Steven McIntyre that it is based on a computer modeling program error and other methodological errors, which almost always produces a hockey-stick graph result from trendless red-noise data.

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a political, not scientific, organization, whose charter is to provide evidence to the U.N. for climate change and Global Warming. Dr. Vincent Grey, an IPCC reviewer, testifies that the IPCC made up the conclusions beforehand in their summary, then told the scientists writing the details to choose facts that supported the summary. Scientists who were involved said that the scientists were kept in rooms to write a page apiece, with runners going back and forth between them and the policy-makers, telling them how to make changes to what they were writing to agree with the summary which had already been written. The “discovery” of open sea near the North Pole by an IPCC scientist, was only the re-discovery of a Northwest Passage that had first been discovered in 1906.  The fact is that arctic temperatures 8000 years ago (based on ice-core samples) were higher than they are today.

Professor Ian Clark, Dept. of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa, says that he believed in Global Warming until he investigated. He was surprised to find absolutely no evidence of human-causes, but overwhelming evidence of causes in the changes of the sun’s output.

Al Gore, in his “Inconvenient Truth”, reversed the graphs of temperature and CO2 levels, and separated them, to show that CO2 changes drive temperature changes. The original graphs, from ice-core samples, actually show that temperature, specifically the sun’s output, drives CO2 changes, with an 800 year lag between temperature increases and increases in CO2. The fundamental assumption in his presentation has been shown to be wrong.

Of the 200 billion metric tons of CO2 put into the atmosphere every year, most is produced by vegetation, the soil, and the oceans. Only 3% is produced by human activities.  Water vapor accounts for 97% of all greenhouse gases, with CO2 contributing 2%, then traces of methane, clorofluorocarbons and nitrous oxide. So humans contribute 3% of the 2% of greenhouse gases.  CO2 is also heavier than air, and so it tends to gather closer to the ground, and is almost not found at all in the upper atmosphere where it could contribute to the “greenhouse effect”.  Clouds produce 66-86% of greenhouse gas effects, where CO2 produces 9-27%, and man’s contribution to that is only 3%, or 1% overall.

Much of the temperature data being used to support the warming theory is taken from around cities, where land-use issues such as the expansion of paved areas have much more to do with rising temperatures.  Satellite data shows a much smaller temperature rise.  Balloons released all over the globe also show a very small temperature rise in the atmosphere.

The El Nino effect of 1997-1998, which caused a rise in water vapor in the atmosphere, saw a 1 degree temperature spike around the world. But there has been no appreciable temperature rise since 1998, despite a great rise in CO2 output.  With NASA-corrected data we see that, despite what Al Gore said about 1998 thru 2006 being the warmest years on record,  six of the ten hottest years were between 1920 and 1953.  The five hottest years were 1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, and 1933 respectively.

In 1974 – 1975 the greatest threat being trumpeted by the media was Global Cooling, where the scientific consensus and media alarmists were predicting a coming Ice Age and resulting drop in food production. The same words, such as “catastrophe”, “chaos”, and “havoc” were being used then as are being used today about Global Warming.

In 2003, 56% of climatologists said that man is causing Global Warming, but most still said we should not base policy on that theory.

The Global Warming theory is all based on computer models, not reality, simulating climate from the surface up through the atmosphere, and trying to take into account temperatures, precipitation, cloud cover, winds, movements of weather systems, evaporation from oceans and land, and global ice cover among other variables. This is too complex for a computer model, and it involves components that interact in non-linear ways, in an unpredictable cascade of processes.

Droughts, hurricanes, and other weather phenomena are cyclical.  Global Warming advocates warn that warming will produce more serious storms. But history shows that storm intensity is worse in colder periods. From 1851 to 1950 there were 15 – 22 hurricanes per decade, with 5 – 8 major.  From 1951 to 2000 there were 12 – 15 per decade, 5 -6 major.  In 2005 we had a devastating hurricane season, while in 2006 there were virtually none. The theory that there would be a greater temperature rise in the middle atmosphere, causing more intense storms, after surface temperatures rise, is not matched by the facts.

Despite Al Gore’s alarmism about polar bears, the fact is that polar bear populations are rising, except for one species.

In Antarctica, there is some melting ice at the edges, but the central ice mass is increasing. Greenland too may be melting at the edges, but the ice mass of the interior is increasing. During the times of the Norsemen, 800 years ago, there was widespread agriculture in Greenland. This was during the “Middle Warming Period” or “Medieval Optimal”. By 1400 they had to leave Greenland as the ice took over their farmlands.

There is a direct and graphic correlation shown between an increase in sunspots and higher temperatures on earth. They do not cause warming, but the length of the solar cycle affect earth’s temperatures. This is because solar flares protect against cosmic radiation and serve to cool the earth.  (?!?!)

Mars and other planets appear to be warming also.

Elevated CO2 is very beneficial to crops and plants.  CO2 levels now are much lower than they used to be.  At one time CO2 was at ten times the current level, and vegetation flourished.  Up to 5 times the amount of current CO2 would not be harmful to humans, and it has been proven by horticultural experiments to increase the yield on all food crops. More CO2 also helps plants use less water to grow, almost like a free fertilizer, and can relieve famine in marginal areas.

Big Oil companies do not support Global Warming opponents. On the contrary, they play hardball politics to get Congress to spend more on Global Warming research, so they can make billions of dollars on Cap and Trade policies.

Note:  This is a summary of points made about Global Warming, as contained in a DVD entitled "Global Warming or Global Governance"