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Sorry. The jury is still out, in my opinion.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/met....918ec459.html
Global warming hot topic at Houston meeting
Web Posted: 02/10/2005 12:00 AM CST
Anton Caputo
Express-News Staff Writer
HOUSTON — A panel of scientists from Texas and the United Kingdom converged Wednesday on this hub of the American petroleum industry to discuss the dangers of global warming and strategies for combating them.
The two-day conference at Rice University's S Oil Auditorium comes on the heels of bleak new reports by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The scientific organization predicts global temperatures will increase between 2.5 degrees and 10.4 degrees by 2100, depending on how successful the world is at curbing carbon dioxide and other global warming-causing gasses.
The increased heat would result in an average sea-level rise of 4 inches to 35 inches. It also could severely impact the food and water supplies in tropical countries and swell the number of severe weather events, floods and heat waves worldwide, scientists concluded.
The conference also comes off in the backdrop of continuing international dispute over issue.
The Kyoto Treaty, a 141-nation international agreement to cap global warming gasses, goes into effect Feb. 16 with the full support of Europe and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who recently named global warming one of his country's top issues. However, the United States isn't part of the treaty because the Bush administration opted out in 2001.
"I am very conscious that we do not see eye-to-eye with the U.S. administration on Kyoto," said Judith Slater, the British consul-general in Houston. "The U.S. must decide whether it wants to sit at this table and help shape the future solutions or whether to risk marginalizing itself by not participating in the process."
Some high-profile dissenters have shed doubt on the global warming theory, particularly in the United States, but most of the international scientific community believes it is valid. This includes the National Academy of Sciences.
Speaking to the controversy at Wednesday's conference, Timothy Killeen, director of the federally funded U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said he used to tell students the "jury was out" when it came to global warming. But he said the evidence is too overwhelming.
"The jury came in 10 years ago or more," he said. "We cannot account for the climate change of the late 20th century without the direct impact of human activity."
The United Kingdom has pledged to cut carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2050.
Among the speakers was Julian Hunt, a member of the British House of Lords and former director-general of the British Meteorological Office. He said that skeptics need only look at the fact that the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 1990.
Hunt urged the scientists and government representatives at the conference to push the international community and the United States past the Kyoto controversy, and continue to spur constructive debate about the issue — particularly Europe's cap-and-trade carbon program, which is similar to the United State's sulfur emission trading plan.
In many ways, he said, Houston was the perfect setting for the debate, being the top carbon-producing city in the top-carbon producing state of the world's top carbon-producing nation.
Sorry. The jury is still out, in my opinion.
Hey, if you don't believe it, then it must not be true, so we don't have to do anything about it.
I blame cow farts.. Just drive through through Norco, CA, Kettleman City, CA, and some place on the 10 in New Mexico just past El Paso.
Lordy!
Sean Marks also knows all about quadroped mammal farts...ask him.
That's not what I said. But hey, if twisting my words makes your day, have at it. *shrug*
Why do you think the jury is still out Travis?
I can read the data and the reports too. And I don't only read IPCC stuff.
In fact, while I'm not especially proud of it (it's not very objective of me), I wouldn't trust an IPCC report as far as I could throw it.
The data is too equivocal, the measurements do not include any discussion of uncertainty, the analysis of the data often depends on pre-conceived assumptions or reliance on a few data points to the exclusion of others.
Basically, my stance right now is (1) you haven't proved it to me yet, but I'm not opposed to the idea...I'm an agnostic, and (2) even if "global warming" is true, there are way too many variables (and not enough analysis) to blithely state that human intervention is the cause.
I'm actually curious as to why people deny it's existance, because everything I've read points to it being a pretty slam dunk case.
I don't read actual data though, I wouldn't know where to begin. I'm going to do some searching as to why people are opposed to it, I'll post the stuff in here.
One site you can evaluate is www.globalwarming.org
Here's something I found there. For your consideration.
2500 minus one
Dr. Christopher Landsea of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Research Division at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, has withdrawn as an author of the Fourth Assessment Report under preparation by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for release in 2007.
Landsea has written more than forty articles on hurricanes and other tropical storm systems for refereed scientific publications during the last twelve years (see www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html for specific references). As an author, he contributed to the last two IPCC Assessments and had primary responsibility for sections describing the past, present and future behavior of tropical cyclones.
He recently wrote and circulated an ‘Open Letter’ among his colleagues to announce and explain his decision to withdraw from further IPCC participation. We have his permission to quote it. We have added bold-faced emphasis to certain section that are not in the original.
Dear colleagues,
After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns.
With this open letter to the community, I wish to explain the basis for my decision and bring awareness to what I view as a problem in the IPCC process. The IPCC is a group of climate researchers from around the world that every few years summarize how climate is changing and how it may be altered in the future due to manmade global warming. I had served both as an author for the Observations chapter and a Reviewer for the 2nd Assessment Report in 1995 and the 3rd Assessment Report in 2001, primarily on the topic of tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons). My work on hurricanes, and tropical cyclones more generally, has been widely cited by the IPCC. For the upcoming AR4, I was asked several weeks ago by the Observations chapter Lead Author — Dr. Kevin Trenberth — to provide the writeup for Atlantic hurricanes. As I had in the past, I agreed to assist the IPCC in what I thought was to be an important and politically-neutral determination of what is happening with our climate.
Shortly after Dr. Trenberth requested that I draft the Atlantic hurricane section for the AR4's Observations chapter, Dr. Trenberth participated in a press conference organized by scientists at Harvard on the topic "Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity" along with other media interviews on the topic. The result of this media interaction was widespread coverage that directly connected the very busy 2004 Atlantic hurricane season as being caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming occurring today. Listening to and reading transcripts of this press conference and other media interviews, it is apparent that Dr. Trenberth was being accurately quoted and summarized in such statements and was not being misrepresented in the media. These media sessions have the potential to result in a widespread perception that global warming has made recent hurricane activity much more severe.
I found it a bit perplexing that the participants in the Harvard press conference had come to the conclusion that global warming was impacting hurricane activity today. To my knowledge, none of the participants in that press conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, nor were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.
Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supported by the most recent credible studies that any impact in the future from global warming upon hurricanes will likely be quite small. The latest results from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Knutson and Tuleya, Journal of Climate, 2004) suggest that by around 2080, hurricanes may have winds and rainfall about 5% more intense than today. It has been proposed that even this tiny change may be an exaggeration as to what may happen by the end of the 21st Century (Michaels, Knappenberger, and Landsea, Journal of Climate, 2005, submitted).
It is beyond me why my colleagues would utilize the media to push an unsupported agenda that recent hurricane activity has been due to global warming. Given Dr. Trenberth’s role as the IPCC’s Lead Author responsible for preparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to concern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed objectively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity. My view is that when people identify themselves as being associated with the IPCC and then make pronouncements far outside current scientific understandings thatthis will harm the credibility of climate change science and will in the longer term diminish our role in public policy.
My concerns go beyond the actions of Dr. Trenberth and his colleagues to how he and other IPCC officials responded to my concerns. I did caution Dr. Trenberth before the media event and provided him a summary of the current understanding within the hurricane research community. I was disappointed when the IPCC leadership dismissed my concerns when I brought up the misrepresentation of climate science while invoking the authority of the IPCC. Specifically, the IPCC leadershipsaid that Dr. Trenberth was speaking as an individual, even though he was introduced in the press conference as an IPCC lead author. I was told that that the media was exaggerating or misrepresenting his words, even though the audio from the press conference and interview tells a different story (available on the web directly); and that Dr. Trenberth was accurately reflecting conclusions from the TAR, even though it is quite clear that the TAR stated that there was no connection between global warming and hurricane activity at this time. The IPCC leadership saw nothing to be concerned with in Dr. Trenberth's unfounded pronouncements to the media, despite his supposedly impartial important role that he must undertake as a Lead Author on the upcoming AR4.
It is certainly true that "individual scientists can do what they wish in their own rights," as one of the folks in the IPCC leadership suggested. Differing conclusions and robust debates are certainly crucial to progress in climate science. However, this case is not an honest scientific discussion conducted at a meeting of climate researchers. Instead, a scientist with an important role in the IPCC represented himself as a Lead Author for the IPCC and has used that position to promulgate to the media and general public his own opinion that the busy 2004 hurricane season was caused by global warming, which is in direct opposition to research written in the field and is counter to conclusions in the TAR. This becomes problematic when I am then asked to provide the draft about observed hurricane activity variations for the AR4 with, ironically, Dr. Trenberth as the Lead Author for this chapter. Because of Dr. Trenberth's pronouncements, the IPCC process on our assessment of these crucial extreme events in our climate system has been subverted and compromised, its neutrality lost. While no one can "tell" scientists what to say or not say (nor am I suggesting that), the IPCC did select Dr. Trenberth as a Lead Author and entrusted to him to carry out this duty in a non-biased, neutral point of view. When scientists hold press conferences and speak with the media, much care is needed not to reflect poorly upon the IPCC. It is of more than passing interest to note that Dr. Trenberth, while eager to share his views on global warming and hurricanes with the media, declined to do so at the Climate Variability and Change Conference in January where he made several presentations. Perhaps he was concerned that such speculation — though worthy in his mind of public pronouncements — would not stand up to the scrutiny of fellow climate scientists.
I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound. As the IPCC leadership has seen no wrong in Dr. Trenberth's actions and have retained him as a Lead Author for the AR4, I have decided to no longer participate in the IPCC AR4.
Sincerely,
Chris Landsea
What Landsea’s letter illuminates is yet another example of what climatologist Patrick Michaels, our senior editor, calls “the predictable distortion of global warming” in his book Meltdown in which he argues that, in general, climate scientists are not policy-neutral. Professional advancement often is best-served by exaggerating threats of climate change in public discourse. A glaring example was the complete omission of the word “satellite” in the Summary for Policymakers of the 1996 IPCC Second Assessment. As a result, policymakers were not aware that orbiting temperature monitors show no statistically significant warming — a difference with the surface thermometer record that nine years later is yet to be resolved.
Ironically, previous IPCC report sections on hurricanes (for which Landsea was a major contributor) were accurate and comprehensive. In the Second Assessment, for example, Landsea provided the IPCC a graphic showing that the average maximum wind speed attained in Atlantic Ocean tropical storms and hurricanes declined between 1944 and 1993 (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Annual average maximum wind speeds recorded in Atlantic basin tropical cyclones (Landsea et al., 1996).
Updating this data through 2004 shows that even considering the recent upswing in hurricane activity over the past decade there has been no long-term change in the average maximum wind speed. This observation runs counter to proclamations that anthropogenic changes to the earth’s atmosphere have made hurricanes more severe. Landsea probably would have ensured such an updated figure became part of the upcoming IPCC report. Now it is unlikely to appear.
As more scientists find the heavy-handed tactics of the global warming fanatics to be unsettling, the oft-heard claim that IPCC findings represent the “consensus” view of 2,500 scientists will need to be modified. If not, such a statement will fail to reflect the fact the remaining participants in the IPCC process are distorting climate science. What else can anyone conclude given the now abundantly clear fact the IPCC leadership encourages and participates in such activity. This latest flap over hurricanes, resulting in Landsea’s resignation, should signal IPCC participants they’d better prepare to reap the whirlwind if this trend remains unchecked by courageous acts similar to Landsea’s.
February 2, 2005
Reference
Landsea, C.W., et al., 1996. Downward trends in the frequency of intense Atlantic hurricanes during the past five decades. Geophysical Research Letters, 23, 1697-1700.
Michaels, P.J., 2004. Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media, Cato Ins ute, Washington DC, 271pp.
It's because the surface temperature increase doesn't match the atmospheric curve.
The use of fossil fuels of the last century and steady increase of carbon emmisions is also not refelcted in atmospheric temperature increase.
Sure the temperature now is the same as it was in the late 1800's, relatively warm, but during a time when there were NO regulations on emissions and MASSIVE increases in fossil fuel use (1950-1980) global temperature actually went DOWN.
We are JUST NOW up to temperatures seen in the late 1800's when there was relatively LITTLE influence of fossil fuels.
Global temperatures also follow Solar Activity VERY closely, but no one wants to talk about that. A normal solar cycle is 11 years. Do you remember the big hoopla on this solar cycle us seeing more solar flares and more activity than any previous since the study of them began?
Lemme see... 93 million miles away there is our generator of heat that just went through a huge influx of activity but yet we are supposed to hold this thing we call the Sun as a CONSTANT?! and assume that the only variable in the earth's temperature cycles are caused by MEN?
The arrogance of that is overwhelming, but sadly, completely predictable.
I completely agree the Sun is a major factor that is currently being ignored by the "community". Well, the IPCC community anyway...
We don't believe it!
Regards,
South Texas, 25 December 2004
Greenhouse Warming Scorecard with links to references.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/hoyt/scorecard.htm
any more links? That was a pretty good read.
Increased solar brightness and warming of the Earth since 1979
The sun may have increased in brightness over the last couple of decades as summarized in the following press release:
Researcher Finds Solar Trend That Can Warm Climate
Ends debate over whether sun can play a role in climate change
Since the late 1970s, the amount of solar radiation the sun emits during times of quiet sunspot activity has increased by nearly .05 percent per decade, according to the study. “This trend is important because, if sustained over many decades, it could cause significant climate change,” said Willson, a researcher affiliated with NASA Goddard Ins ute for Space Studies and the Earth Ins ute at Columbia University, and lead author of the study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters.
“Historical records of solar activity indicate that solar radiation has been increasing since the late 19th century,” says Willson. “If a trend comparable the one found in this study persisted during the 20th century it would have provided a significant component of the global warming that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report claims to have occurred over the last 100 years.”
Willson found errors in previous satellite data that had obscured the trend. The new analysis, Willson says, should put an end to a debate in the field over whether solar irradiance variability can play a significant role in climate change.
The solar cycle occurs approximately every 11 years when the sun undergoes a period of increased magnetic and sunspot activity called the "solar maximum," followed by a quiet period called the "solar minimum." A trend in the average solar radiation level over many solar magnetic cycles would contribute to climate change in a major way. Satellite observations of total solar irradiance have now obtained a long enough record (over 24 years) to begin looking for this effect.
Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) is the radiant energy received by the Earth from the sun over all wavelengths outside the Earth's atmosphere. Its interaction with the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and land masses is the biggest factor determining the Earth’s climate. To put it into perspective, decreases in TSI of 0.2 percent occur during the week-long passage of large sunspot groups across our side of the sun. These changes are relatively insignificant compared to the sun’s total output of energy, but are equivalent to all the energy that mankind uses in a year. According to Willson, small variations like the one found in this study, if sustained over many decades, could have significant climate effects.
In order to investigate the possibility of a solar trend, Willson needed to put together a long-term dataset of the Sun’s total output. Six overlapping satellite experiments have monitored TSI since late 1978.The first record came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Nimbus7 Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) experiment (1978-1993). Other records came from NASA’s Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitors: ACRIM1 on the Solar Maximum Mission (1980-1989), ACRIM2 on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (1991-2001) and ACRIM3 on the ACRIMSAT satellite (2000 to present). Also, NASA launched its own Earth Radiation Budget Experiment on its Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) in 1984. And, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) SOHO/VIRGO experiment also provided an independent data set during 1996-1998.
In this study, Willson, who is also Principal Investigator of the ACRIM experiments, compiled a TSI record of over 24 years by carefully piecing together the overlapping records. In order to construct a long-term dataset, Willson needed to bridge a two-year gap (1989-1991) between ACRIM1 and ACRIM2. Both the Nimbus7/ERB and ERBS measurements overlapped the ACRIM ‘gap.’ Using Nimbus7/ERB results produced a 0.05 percent per decade upward trend between solar minima, while ERBS results produced no trend. Until this study, the cause of this difference, and hence the validity of the TSI trend, was uncertain. Now, Willson has identified specific errors in the ERBS data responsible for the difference. The accurate long-term dataset therefore shows a significant positive trend (.05 percent per decade) in TSI between the solar minima of solar cycles 21 to 23 (1978 to present).
The ACRIMSAT/ACRIM3 experiment began in 2000 and will carry out long-term solar observations for at least five more years. The instrumentation for the ACRIMSAT/ACRIM3 experiment was the latest in a series of ACRIM’s developed for satellite experiments by Willson and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the California Ins ute of Technology. JPL operates the ACRIMSAT/ACRIM3 experiment for Willson using their tracking station at the Table Mountain Observatory in California. One of the missions of NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise, which funded this research, is to study the primary causes of climate variability, including trends in solar radiation that may be a factor in global climate change
.
For more information about ACRIM, please go to: http://www.acrim.com
The key quote is “The accurate long-term dataset therefore shows a significant positive trend (.05 percent per decade) in TSI between the solar minima of solar cycles 21 to 23 (1978 to present).” Such as an increase is sufficient to explain most of the observed warming.
Even if this result is not correct, there are reasons to believe the sun varies in brightness over decades and centuries. The evidence includes:
1. Variations in sunspot structure and the Earth’s temperature closely followed each other from 1874 to 1976. Sunspot structure provides a measure of the strength of small scale turbulence in the sun and hence indicates long-term changes in solar luminosity.
2. Changes in solar cycle length closely follow changes in sunspot structure and the Earth’s temperature. The changes in cycle length are probably caused by changes in the large scale turbulence of the sun as reflected in meridional flows and hence provide more evidence for solar luminosity changes.
3. Sunspots are particularly long lived during the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715). This indicates reduced turbulence in the sun and reduced luminosity and it is reflected by a cool Earth.
4. Numerous solar and Earth climate proxies are correlated indicating the sun is a major driver of climate change.
References:
Clough, H. W., 1943. The long period variations in the length of the 11-year solar period, and on current variations in terrestrial phenomena. Bull. AMS, 24, 154-163.
Friis-Christensen, E., and K. Lassen, 1991. Length of the solar cycle: An indicator of solar activity closely associated with climate. Science, 254, 698-700.
Hathaway, D. H., D. Nandy, R. M. Wilson, and E. J. Reichmann, 2003. Evidence that a deep meridional flow sets the sunspot cycle period. Ap. J., 589, 665-670.
Hoyt, D. V., 1979. Variations in sunspot structure and climate . Climatic Change, 2, 79-92.
Hoyt, D. V., and K. H. Schatten, 1997. The Role of the Sun in Climate Change , Oxford University Press, 279 pp.
Hoyt, D. V., and K. H. Schatten, 1998. Group sunspot numbers: A new solar activity reconstruction. Part 2. Solar Physics, 181, 491-512.
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