7 replies to this topic

[colion]

Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu has been the Director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks since its establishment in 1998. He has been Professor of Geophysics since 1964. Dr. Akasofu has published more than 550 professional journal articles, authored and co-authored 10 books and has been the invited author of many encyclopedia articles. He has collaborated with numerous colleagues nationally and internationally, and has guided nine students to their Ph.D. degrees.

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Why has "global warming" become such a passionate subject?

– Let's not lose our cool –



Syun Akasofu

International Arctic Research Center

University of Alaska Fairbanks



The new IPCC Report (2007) states, on page 10, "Most observed increase in globally

averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed

increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations." Their great effort in making

progress in climate change science is certainly commended.



The media in the world is paying great attention mostly to the term "very likely,"

meaning the confidence level of more than 90%. However, I, as a scientist, am more

concerned about the term "most," because the IPCC Report does not demonstrate the

basis for the term "most."



There seems to be a roughly linear increase of the temperature from about 1800, or even

much earlier, to the present. This trend should be subtracted from the temperature data

during the last 100 years. Thus, there is a possibility that only a fraction of the present

warming trend may be attributed to the greenhouse effect resulting from human activities.

One possible cause of the linear increase may be that the Earth is still recovering from the

Little Ice Age.



Thus, natural causes cannot be ignored in the present warming trend, in addition to the

greenhouse effect. This short article is my criticism on the report from the point of an

arctic researcher. The Arctic is the place where climate change is most prominently in

progress, compared with the rest of the world.



Before critically examining the new IPCC Report, it is of interest to review why global

warming has become such a passionate subject. In order to find the reasons for the

present rampant reaction to global warming, it is necessary to think back to the Cold War

period. At that time in history, both the United States and the Soviet Union had a large

arsenal of atomic bombs, which could have eliminated all living creatures on Earth many

times over. Therefore, scientists and the general public alike urged both governments to

abolish their nuclear armaments, signing statements urging this action. There was broad

consensus, both amongst the public and in the scientific community, on this issue.



The fear of nuclear war subsided as the Soviet Union began to collapse. It so happened

that just before the collapse of the USSR, some groups of US scientists, using

supercomputers, were studying future trends in the earth's climate. They announced in

1988 that increasing levels of CO2, if unchecked, would cause substantial warming of the

earth's temperature, resulting in various disasters. It is easy to understand why some

advocative scientists, who were searching for new, significant themes, took up the grand

subject of global warming as their new area of focus. This theme was successfully

presented to the United Nations and an organization called the International Panel on

Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988. Suddenly, the quiet scientific backwater

of "climate research" was in the world spotlight. Perhaps, the initial motivation should

not necessarily be faulted.



At the same time, many environmental protection organizations and advocacy groups

were anxious; it was proving difficult to attract the attention of the general public. In

addition, some government officials were also searching for new, globally significant

problems to tackle, avoiding more urgent problems of African poverty and other critical

problems. It is not too great a leap to infer that at least some of these groups seized the

opportunity to make global warming their main theme in the hopes of attracting public

interest.



Meanwhile, the IPCC mobilized a large number of climatologists and meteorologists and

published several impressive, voluminous publications, one after the other. In one of

them, "Climate Change 2001," for example, a figure that became known as "the hockey

stick," was used prominently in the "Summary for Policy Makers," in which the

temperature shows a dramatic increase during the most recent 100 years, after a slow

decrease in temperature over the first 900 years. The nickname "hockey stick" was

coined because the temperature-time curve had this sudden, upward kink near the end,

like a hockey stick. (Since then, this particular figure has been discredited; the new IPCC

Report (2007) does not include the figure.)



With voluminous publications participated by hundreds of scientists, it is therefore

understandable that policy makers would trust the "summary," providing them the

confidence to base major policy-making decisions on the "summary," as indicated by the

"hockey stick" figure.



Indeed, many policy makers, environmental protection groups, the press, and even some

scientists took the IPCC reports to mean that all the participating scientists had come to a

shared broad consensus that global warming is a very serious issue facing mankind. It is

important to recognize that this consensus is of quite a different nature from the one

reached on nuclear disarmament. A large number of atomic bombs did, in fact, exist;

there was no uncertainty, compared with global warming, which requires much more

efforts to understand for the causes.



The reason for emphasizing this point is that whenever someone says there is some

uncertainty in projections of future temperature increase, someone else will assert that the

danger of global warming has been accurately predicted to be 3°C, as shown in the IPCC

Reports, and agreed upon by hundreds of top researchers. Do all the participating

scientists agree on the term "most?" If they do, what are their scientific bases?

A supercomputer, as complex and powerful as it may be, is a far cry from the complexity

of our real earth! It is simply a very poor virtual earth. Actually, the modelers themselves

should know best the limitations of their results as they continue to improve their models,

and perhaps modelers should, at times, be a little more cautious about their findings. In

any case, modeling is nothing more than an academic exercise, at least at this stage.

There is a considerable difference among results obtained by different researchers. To

give just one example, the predicted year when Arctic Ocean sea ice would disappear

entirely in the summer months spans a range from 2040 to at least 2300. This shows the

uncertainty in modeling studies. Since sea ice plays the role of the lid in warming water

in a pan, it plays a significant role in climate change and future prediction.



To exacerbate this situation, the media, by and large, tend to report worst-case scenarios

and disasters, for example using only the 2040 story. It is understandable that disaster

stories draw more readers than stories about the benefits of global warming.

Unfortunately, most reporters have little or no background in understanding debates on

the simulation results. For these reasons, the initial effort of IPCC has gotten out of

control.



It is also a serious problem that global warming can so easily be blamed for everything

bad that happens, such as floods (which often result instead from massive deforestation or from loss of wetlands) or extinction of some species (which may result from overharvesting, loss of habitat, invasion of exotics, pollution problems), etc. In the meantime, those who are really responsible for these calamities can easily hide under the umbrella of global warming.



Most reporters, who come to Alaska to try to find the greenhouse disasters, have little

knowledge of the Arctic. They take photographs of large blocks of ice falling from

glaciers at their termini and report that global warming is in progress before their very

eyes. However, glaciers are not static piles of ice, but instead are constantly flowing

rivers of ice. It is normal for tidewater glaciers to calve large blocks of ice from the face

as they reach the sea, and they will do so regardless of how warm or cold it is. Most

glaciers in the world have been receding since 1800 or earlier, well before 1940, when

CO2 began to increase significantly. Why do major media of the world flock all the way

to Alaska, if global warming is a global phenomenon? So far, what they would find is

broken houses in Shishmaref, a little island in the Bering Sea coast, because of coastal

erosion that is difficult to relate to a direct result of global warming. Some of the current

global warming stories, including "The Day after Tomorrow," are based on science

fiction, not science.



Some of the weak points in the present IPCC Report are:



• There has recently been so much attention focused on the CO2 effect, the Little

Ice age has been forgotten. The recovery rate from the Little Ice Age may be as

much as 0.5°C/100 years, comparable to the present warming trend of 0.6°C/100

years. The warming caused by the linear change must be carefully evaluated and

subtracted in determining the greenhouse effect.



• There was no critical analysis of the mid-century change; the temperature rose

between 1910 and 1940, similar in magnitude and rate to the present rise after

1975. Further, the temperature decreased from 1940 to 1975, in spite of the fact

that the release of CO2 increased rapidly. At that time, we had similar debates

about imminent "global cooling" (the coming of a new ice age) in the 1970s.



• It is crucial to investigate any difference between the 1910-40 increase and the

increase after 1975, since the former is likely to be due to natural causes, rather

than the greenhouse effect.



• The most prominent warming (twice the global average) took place in the Arctic,

particularly in the continental arctic, during the last half of the 20th century, as

stated in the IPCC Report, but it disappeared during the last decade or so. Further,

the IPCC models cannot reproduce the prominent continental warming, in spite of

the fact that the measured amount of CO2 was considered. This particular

warming is likely to be part of multi-decadal oscillations, a natural cause.



• It is also important to know that the temperature has been increasing almost

linearly from about 1750, or earlier, to the present, in addition to multi-decadal

oscillations, such as the familiar El Niño. These are natural changes.



• Both changes are significant. Until they can be quantitatively more carefully

examined and subtracted from the present trend, it is not possible to determine the

manmade greenhouse effect. Therefore, there is no firm basis to claim "most" in

the IPCC Report.



• The IPCC should have paid more attention to climate change in the Arctic.



• The mid-century (1940-1975) alarm of a coming Ice Age teaches a very important

lesson to all of us, including climate researchers. It is not possible to forecast

climate change (warming or cooling) in the year 2100 based on a few decades of

data alone.



• Further, it is very confusing that some members of the media and some scientific

experts blame "global warming" for every "anomalous" weather change,

including big snowfalls, droughts, floods, ice storms, and hurricanes. This only

confuses the issue.



At the International Arctic Research Center, which was established under the auspices of

the "US-Japan Common Agenda" in 1999, our researchers are working on the arctic

climate change issues mentioned in the above, in particular, in distinguishing natural

changes and the manmade greenhouse effects in the Arctic. The term "most" is very

inaccurate.



We must restore respectability – by that I mean scientific rigor - to the basic science of

climatology. We must also stop "tabloid" publications in science. Only then, can we

make real progress in projecting future temperature change. Although I have been

"designated" by the news media as "Alaska's best known climate change skeptic," I am a

critic, not a skeptic. Science without criticism could go astray.



In the meantime, environmental protection advocates might consider a return to their

original important themes of protecting the environment from destruction, pollution,

over-harvesting, massive deforestation, and habitat destruction. All these processes of

environmental degradation are taking place right now before our very eyes, and they are

not all related to global warming.



People who are concerned about protecting the earth might also turn their attention to this

question - Why has so little concrete effort been made to reduce the release of CO2,

compared to such a great outcry and hysteria about global warming?

[stocks]

We suppose that the observable long-term identical variations of activity, radius and irradiance are a result of the same processes occurring deeply inside and are coordinated by a global variation of the entire Sun which is caused by cyclic changes of temperature in the Sun's core. As this takes place, the long-term global variations of the whole Sun can serve the catalyst of the generation of solar cycles. We predict the approach of the following sufficiently deep minimum of activity, irradiance and radius of the 200-year cycle of the Sun near the year 2040+10. The minimum will be close to the level of the Maunder Minimum.

The Maunder Minimum is the name given to the period roughly from 1645 to 1715 A.D., when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time. It is named after the later solar astronomer E.W. Maunder who discovered the dearth of sunspots during that period by studying records from those years. During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, for example, astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to a more typical 40,000–50,000 spots.

The Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle — and coldest part — of the so-called Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America, and perhaps much of the rest of the world, were subjected to bitterly cold winters. Whether there is a causal connection between low sunspot activity and cold winters is the subject of ongoing debate (e.g. see Global Warming).


http://adsabs.harvar...KFNT...21..471A

http://en.wikipedia....Maunder_Minimum

[maineman]

Perhaps the most elegant idea to evolve from old, ancient "eastern" philosophy is the idea that if you want to change the world, change yourself. A recent survey showed that while "most" Americans see themselves as charitable and state that they feel they should really "get involved", most don't, for one reason or another. Whether we understand the great cycle of life or not in our lifetime, the question, for me, is whether I, as one person, can make a difference? I believe it is worth trying. So I walk or bike or use public transportation when I can. I recycle eveything I can and vote for recycling measures in local and state elections. I drive a hybrid car and get over 40 mpg. I eat practically no meat, as I feel that raising beef is inefficient for the growing population of the earth. I take my own bags with me to the market. I don't snowmobile through forests. I don't snowmobile at all. I'm wearing the same old clothes I've had for years. You will likely NOT see me on the cover of GQ. I try to critically assess the relative values of federally funded programs for cleaner energy and support those measures that make sense. etc. Will it make a diffence? I believe that if you want to change the world, change yourself. mm

[Rogerdodger]

Maineman, I can't disagree with your comments, but I am wondering: How long have you been single? PS: I'm still looking for some of that Apline Heather.

Edited by Rogerdodger, 04 April 2007 - 11:08 PM.

[TechSkeptic]

maineman, I agree completely with your philosophy and share many of the same habits (including the hybrid, and no beef, and especially the part about wearing the same clothes year after year ). Though I must admit I seldom ride public transportation, it's kind of difficult to do so living in the suburbs with kids. It's interesting that the debate is no longer about whether global warming is occuring (which is now indisputable), but whether it is due to human activity. I certainly do not pretend to know the answer, and I believe it's probably quite difficult to prove either way, even by smart scientists. But while any doubt exists, why not play it safe and do what we can, both individually, and collectively, to minimize our impact?

[stocks]

But while any doubt exists, why not play it safe and do what we can, both individually, and collectively, to minimize our impact?

Because some risks are more important than others.

What do you think is more dangerous, a house with a pool or a house with a gun? When, for "20/20," I asked some kids, all said the house with the gun is more dangerous. I'm sure their parents would agree. Yet a child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than in a gun accident.

Parents don't know that partly because the media hate guns and gun accidents make bigger headlines. Ask yourself which incident would be more likely to be covered on TV.

Media exposure clouds our judgment about real-life odds. Of course, it doesn't help that viewers are as ignorant about probability as reporters are.




http://www.realclear...ght_things.html

[stocks]

We suppose that the observable long-term identical variations of activity, radius and irradiance are a result of the same processes occurring deeply inside and are coordinated by a global variation of the entire Sun which is caused by cyclic changes of temperature in the Sun's core. As this takes place, the long-term global variations of the whole Sun can serve the catalyst of the generation of solar cycles. We predict the approach of the following sufficiently deep minimum of activity, irradiance and radius of the 200-year cycle of the Sun near the year 2040+10. The minimum will be close to the level of the Maunder Minimum.

The Maunder Minimum is the name given to the period roughly from 1645 to 1715 A.D., when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time. It is named after the later solar astronomer E.W. Maunder who discovered the dearth of sunspots during that period by studying records from those years. During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, for example, astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to a more typical 40,000–50,000 spots.

The Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle — and coldest part — of the so-called Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America, and perhaps much of the rest of the world, were subjected to bitterly cold winters. Whether there is a causal connection between low sunspot activity and cold winters is the subject of ongoing debate (e.g. see Global Warming).


http://adsabs.harvar...KFNT...21..471A

http://en.wikipedia....Maunder_Minimum

Sun's low magnetic activity may portend an ice age

The Canadian Space Agency’s radio telescope has been reporting Flux Density Values so low they will mean a mini ice age if they continue.

Like the number of sunspots, the Flux Density Values reflect the Sun’s magnetic activity, which affects the rate at which the Sun radiates energy and warmth. CSA project director Ken Tapping calls the radio telescope that supplies NASA and the rest of the world with daily values of the Sun’s magnetic activity a “stethoscope on the Sun”. In this case, however, it is the “doctor” whose health is directly affected by the readings.

This is because when the magnetic activity is low, the Sun is dimmer, and puts out less radiant warmth. If the Sun goes into dim mode, as it has in the past, the Earth gets much colder.

Tapping, who was originally from Kent, says that “Typically as you go through the ten or eleven year solar activity cycle you see the numbers go up or down. The lowest number is 64 or 68. The numbers 71 or 72 are very low, but they usually start to go up. We are at the end of a cycle, but the numbers still haven’t gone up. We have been joking around coffee that we may be seeing the Sun about to shut down.” (To date Tapping has been far more concerned about global warming.)

These were the values released yesterday -

Density Values in sfu for 22:00 on 2008:01:30

Julian Day Number : 2454496.406

Carrington Rotation Number : 2066.207

Observed Flux Density : 0073.6

Flux Density Adjusted for 1 A.U. : 0071.4

URSI Series D Flux, Adj. x 0.9 : 0064.3

According to NASA, “early, well-documented records indicate that the Sun went through a period of inactivity in the late 17th century" from about 1645 to 1715, during the Maunder Minimum.

http://www.britsatth....com/001645.php

[grizzly]

Climate change will be affecting agriculture, food supplies, water supplies, energy, and raw materials around the world. With rapidly increasing worldwide populations and increasing development these effects will greatly increase competition over scarce resources. It is likely that this competition will escalate into more and conflicts over scarce resources which will likely exacerbate societal and political instability and may lead to wars. Our military and national security experts recognize this and are planning accordingly.

Too bad our government and society can't mobilize to prevent the problem in the first place, i.e. -REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS- of course why do that when you can plan for military action instead.

http://www.securityandclimate.cna.org/