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From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of David T. Marx
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 10:13 AM
To: phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
Subject: [Phys-l] climate change and climate scientists - editorial
The following is a column that appeared in a Canadian newspaper.
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Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe
"The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmists
By Tom Harris
Monday, June 12, 2006
"Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al
Gore sensibly asserts in his film "An Inconvenient Truth", showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in
Toronto since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about
the science of his movie?
Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia
gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so
weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public
attention."
But surely Carter is merely part of what most people regard as a tiny cadre of "climate change
skeptics" who disagree with the "vast majority of scientists" Gore cites?
No; Carter is one of hundreds of highly qualified non-governmental, non-industry, non-lobby group
climate experts who contest the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are causing
significant global climate change. "Climate experts" is the operative term here. Why? Because what
Gore's "majority of scientists" think is immaterial when only a very small fraction of them
actually work in the climate field.
Even among that fraction, many focus their studies on the impacts of climate change; biologists,
for example, who study everything from insects to polar bears to poison ivy. "While many are highly
skilled researchers, they generally do not have special knowledge about the causes of global
climate change," explains former University of Winnipeg climatology professor Dr. Tim Ball. "They
usually can tell us only about the effects of changes in the local environment where they conduct
their studies."
This is highly valuable knowledge, but doesn't make them climate change cause experts, only climate
impact experts.
So we have a smaller fraction.
But it becomes smaller still. Among experts who actually examine the causes of change on a global
scale, many concentrate their research on designing and enhancing computer models of hypothetical
futures. "These models have been consistently wrong in all their scenarios," asserts Ball. "Since
modelers concede computer outputs are not "predictions" but are in fact merely scenarios, they are
negligent in letting policy-makers and the public think they are actually making forecasts."
We should listen most to scientists who use real data to try to understand what nature is actually
telling us about the causes and extent of global climate change. In this relatively small
community, there is no consensus, despite what Gore and others would suggest.
Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear:
Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year,
Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful
correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact,
when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the
planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson
asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent
relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest
warming?"
Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and "hundreds of other studies"
reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth's temperature and natural
celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.
Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor
in marine geology, University of Helsinki, takes apart Gore's dramatic display of Antarctic
glaciers collapsing into the sea. "The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon
which is due to the normal advance of a glacier," says Winterhalter. "In Antarctica the temperature
is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off
in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is deep enough icebergs will form."
Dr. Wibjörn Karlén, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology,
Stockholm University, Sweden, admits, "Some small areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up
recently, just like it has done back in time. The temperature in this part of Antarctica has
increased recently, probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure
systems."
But Karlén clarifies that the 'mass balance' of Antarctica is positive - more snow is accumulating
than melting off. As a result, Ball explains, there is an increase in the 'calving' of icebergs as
the ice dome of Antarctica is growing and flowing to the oceans. When Greenland and Antarctica are
assessed together, "their mass balance is considered to possibly increase the sea level by 0.03
mm/year - not much of an effect," Karlén concludes.
The Antarctica has survived warm and cold events over millions of years. A meltdown is simply not a
realistic scenario in the foreseeable future.
Gore tells us in the film, "Starting in 1970, there was a precipitous drop-off in the amount and
extent and thickness of the Arctic ice cap." This is misleading, according to Ball: "The survey
that Gore cites was a single transect across one part of the Arctic basin in the month of October
during the 1960s when we were in the middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were done in the
warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology."
Karlén explains that a paper published in 2003 by University of Alaska professor Igor Polyakov
shows that, the region of the Arctic where rising temperature is supposedly endangering polar bears
showed fluctuations since 1940 but no overall temperature rise. "For several published records it
is a decrease for the last 50 years," says Karlén
Dr. Dick Morgan, former advisor to the World Meteorological Organization and climatology researcher
at University of Exeter, U.K. gives the details, "There has been some decrease in ice thickness in
the Canadian Arctic over the past 30 years but no melt down. The Canadian Ice Service records show
that from 1971-1981 there was average, to above average, ice thickness. >From 1981-1982 there was a
sharp decrease of 15% but there was a quick recovery to average, to slightly above average, values
from 1983-1995. A sharp drop of 30% occurred again 1996-1998 and since then there has been a steady
increase to reach near normal conditions since 2001."
Concerning Gore's beliefs about worldwide warming, Morgan points out that, in addition to the
cooling in the NW Atlantic, massive areas of cooling are found in the North and South Pacific
Ocean; the whole of the Amazon Valley; the north coast of South America and the Caribbean; the
eastern Mediterranean, Black Sea, Caucasus and Red Sea; New Zealand and even the Ganges Valley in
India. Morgan explains, "Had the IPCC used the standard parameter for climate change (the 30 year
average) and used an equal area projection, instead of the Mercator (which doubled the area of
warming in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Ocean) warming and cooling would have been almost in
balance."
Gore's point that 200 cities and towns in the American West set all time high temperature records
is also misleading according to Dr. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at The University of
Alabama in Huntsville. "It is not unusual for some locations, out of the thousands of cities and
towns in the U.S., to set all-time records," he says. "The actual data shows that overall, recent
temperatures in the U.S. were not unusual."
Carter does not pull his punches about Gore's activism, "The man is an embarrassment to US science
and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his
propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."
In April sixty of the world's leading experts in the field asked Prime Minister Harper to order a
thorough public review of the science of climate change, something that has never happened in
Canada. Considering what's at stake - either the end of civilization, if you believe Gore, or a
waste of billions of dollars, if you believe his opponents - it seems like a reasonable request.
Tom Harris is mechanical engineer and Ottawa Director of High Park Group, a public affairs and
public policy company.
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