Climate Change
January 12, 2010 2 Comments
Note: I’m not a scientist. So my opinion is amateur at best and my goal here is to raise questions, not give answers. If you want a more academic opinion go visit my friend Phillip at DC Dispatches. He’s a lot smarter than me on this stuff.
With that said, I’m a pretty skeptical guy when it comes to climate science. It’s not that I don’t think man has affected the planet with the by-products of our industries, but I’m not so sure I buy the idea that this is making the earth warmer and we should be very, very concerned. My skepticism is based primarily on the disagreement I see among climate change scientists on the facts associated with potential global warming. There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of consensus to me and in lieu of that, I prefer we continue to do research before we try to implement new policies.
This is just one contrary article but it appears to be well-researched and also contains opinions from prominent climate change scientists. I think it’s worth noting a few selections. From the Daily Mail (h/t Megan McArdle):
The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.
Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in summer by 2013.
The scientists’ predictions also undermine the standard climate computer models, which assert that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise.
They say that their research shows that much of the warming was caused by oceanic cycles when they were in a ‘warm mode’ as opposed to the present ‘cold mode’.
Among the most prominent of the scientists is Professor Mojib Latif, a leading member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has been pushing the issue of man-made global warming on to the international political agenda since it was formed 22 years ago.
Prof Latif, who leads a research team at the renowned Leibniz Institute at Germany’s Kiel University, has developed new methods for measuring ocean temperatures 3,000 ft beneath the surface, where the cooling and warming cycles start.
He and his colleagues predicted the new cooling trend in a paper published in 2008 and warned of it again at an IPCC conference in Geneva last September.
Last night he told The Mail on Sunday: ‘A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles – perhaps as much as 50 per cent.
So again, this is just one article and one group of scientists, but it’s a pretty interesting contradiction to the narrative we’ve been told by Al Gore and his scientific allies for the last several years. Personally, as someone who likes cool weather and has enjoyed relatively mild summers for the last 3-4 years..I like this news. I say bring on the cold. Bring on the snow.
As a non-scientist I would really like for someone with a more appropriate background to try and shoot some holes in this one. Tell me why these guys are nuts and why I should be investing in more t-shirts and less mittens. My anecdotal experience of the last few years has been very enjoyable summers in Kentucky as opposed to our normal humidity and oven-like temperatures. As a gardener, my harvests the last 3 years have been spectacular and the biggest worry has been too much rain and not enough heat. Not exactly the scenario I envisioned when I first started hearing about global warming.
Ask and ye shall be answered… Climate Progress (who’s been studying climate change and politics) has a good piece about this report:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/11/foxnews-wattsupwiththat-climatedepot-daily-mail-article-on-global-cooling-mojib-latif/
Essentially, the Daily Mail is lying. There is a forecast for lower-than-normal temperatures for a few years, but then the accelerated warming starts. Climate Progress has spoken with and described Dr. Latif’s research for some time now, and has a lot of explanatory articles describing Dr. Latif’s research.
From the blog:
According to Latif, over a short time span, say, two decades, it’s hard to determine exactly what fraction of the temperature change is due to what cause, but Latif does not believe nor ever said what the Daily Mail suggests, which is that you can add those periods together and somehow negate the IPCC’s finding. His work simply “does not allow one to make any inferences about global warming.”
Latif has NOT predicted a cooling trend — or a “decades-long deep freeze” – but rather a short-time span where human-caused warming might be partly offset by ocean cycles, staying at current record levels, but then followed by “accelerated” warming where you catch up to the long-term human-caused trend. He does NOT forecast 2 or 3 decades of cooling.
You might want to check this out.
Mike,
Thanks for the Hat Tip. Erika beat me to the Climate Progress response, and I’d invite you and your other readers to give that site a thorough going over. Joe Romm ahs been involved in climate research and policy for a long time. There’s lots of good stuff there, and most of it is accessible to ordinary folks. Given your level of education, most of it should be a breeze.
That said, let me take on one piece of your article. The “lack of concensus” you mention regarding climate change is largely a fabrication. Many of the “scientists” who object to the conclusions of the IPCC and others are not climate scientists at all – and many of them are not even scientists (though they often have Ph.D.s). Of those that are scientists, theres a long history of falsified names on petitions and the like, all of which Climate Progress has detailed as well (as does RealClimate.org).
Consensus in science is rare, and for this one to be as robust, and as long standing as it is should tell you about the validity of the issues at hand. Aside from that, however, there is all sorts of evidence of climate change that IS NOT based on models. Corals, for instance, are bleaching at increasing rates around the world and coral bleaching is directly correlated to surface water temperature. And sadly, the Artic Ocean was nearly ice free this past summer, so the prediciton of 2013 is all too likely. If it weren’t, the U.S. Coast Guard wouldn’t have established a permanent base in Barrow.
And all of that, incidently, doesn’t change the fact that there are natural climate cycles in play here. Where the science shows a problem – and I conclude it is significant based on the work of many of my colleagues – is that the natural patterns are being overtaken and accelerated by human activities. The Earth may well have warmed on its own, but over centuries or millenia, instead of decades.