[PAA-Discuss] Climate Myths

[Ron and Kris Graham]

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/04/climate-myths/

 


Climate Myths


Responses to Andrew Bolt's Article,"10 climate myths"

by Andrew Glikson / April 30th, 2009

Responses to Andrew Bolt's article, "10
<http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/
column_the_10_warming_myths/?source=cmailer>  climate myths" (Herald Sun,
29-4-09)

Andrew Bolt today presented climate change "myths". 

Here is my response to each. Essentially, the "skeptics" are searching for
short annual or biannual changes, rather than looking at decade-scale
trends. Failing to understand that science is a self-correcting discipline,
they hope that, if and when they find minor errors or uncertainties (such as
always exist) the entire scientific edifice behind the idea of climate
change will collapse.

By the fact that the so-called "climate change skeptics" are attempting to
refute every single direct observation and measurement in nature, as well as
the basic physics and chemistry of the atmosphere, indeed climate science as
a discipline, they reveal a resistance to the scientific method as such.

MYTH 1 - THE WORLD IS WARMING

BOLT: Wrong. It is true the world did warm between 1975 and 1998, but even
Professor David Karoly, one of our leading alarmists, admitted this week
"temperatures have dropped" since -"both in surface temperatures and in
atmospheric temperatures measured from satellites". In fact, the fall in
temperatures from just 2002 has already wiped out a quarter of the warming
our planet experienced last century. (Check data from Britain's Hadley
Centre, NASA's Aqua satellite and the US National Climatic Data Center.)

Some experts, such as Karoly, claim this proves nothing and the world will
soon start warming again. Others, such as Professor Ian Plimer of Adelaide
University, point out that so many years of cooling already contradict the
theory that man's rapidly increasing gases must drive up temperatures ever
faster.

But that's all theory. The question I've asked is: What signs can you
actually see of the man-made warming that the alarmists predicted? 

GLIKSON: As has been projected by climate science over the last 20 years,
the increase in atmospheric energy level associated with global warming
results in greater variability, including: greater frequency and stronger
amplitude of the ENSO (El-Nino - La-Nina) cycle and extreme weather events
(hurricane intensity, floods, extreme droughts and fires) and, most
particularly, rapid melt rates of large parts of the Arctic Sea ice,
Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets and shelves - as is in fact
happening around the world, including the recent Australian droughts,
mega-bush fires and floods Australia.

MYTH 2 - THE POLAR CAPS ARE MELTING

BOLT: Wrong. The British Antarctic Survey, working with NASA, last week
confirmed ice around Antarctica has grown 100,000 sq km each decade for the
past 30 years. Long-term monitoring by the US National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration reports the same: southern hemisphere ice has
been expanding for decades.

As for the Arctic, wrong again. The Arctic ice cap shrank badly two summers
ago after years of steady decline, but has since largely recovered.
Satellite data from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre this week shows the
Arctic hasn't had this much April ice for at least seven years. Norway's
Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre says the ice is now within
the standard deviation range for 1979 to 2007. 

GLIKSON: This claim is inconsistent with the numerous reports by NASA and
the National Ice and Snow Data Centre ( NSIDC) regarding the Arctic Sea ice,
Greenland and West Antarctica (References: here; here; here; here), while
the entire Antarctic ice sheet (east and west) has warmed over the last 50
years by 0.12 degrees C per decade and west Antarctica by 0.17 degrees C
per-decade, including major polar warming anomalies where mean temperature
rises over the last 10 years reached levels 3 to 4 degrees higher than
during 1951 - 1980.

MYTH 3 - WE'VE NEVER HAD SUCH A BAD DROUGHT

BOLT: Wrong. A study released this month by the University of NSW Climate
Change Research Centre confirms not only that we've had worse droughts, but
this Big Dry is not caused by "global warming," whether man-made or not.

As the university's press release says: "The causes of southeastern
Australia's longest, most severe and damaging droughts have been discovered,
with the surprise finding that they originate far away in the Indian Ocean.

"A team of Australian scientists has detailed for the first time how a
phenomenon known as the Indian Ocean Dipole - a variable and irregular cycle
of warming and cooling of ocean water - dictates whether moisture-bearing
winds are carried across the southern half of Australia." 

GLIKSON: The development of the Indian Ocean dipoleis related to the current
La-Nina ENSO phase and the development of turbulence northwest of Western
Australia, resulting in strong southeast-directed air currents. The warming
of these currents as they pass over inland Australia result in the dry warm
winds which created the conditions for the tragic Victorian fires, as
confirmed by CSIRO.

MYTH 4 - OUR CITIES HAVE NEVER BEEN HOTTER

BOLT: Wrong. The alleged "record" temperature Melbourne set in January -
46.4 degrees - was in fact topped by the 47.2 degrees the city recorded in
1851. (See the Argus newspaper of February 8, 1851.)

And here's another curious thing: Despite all this warming we're alleged to
have caused, Victoria's highest temperature on record remains the 50.7
degrees that hit Mildura 103 years ago. South Australia's hottest day is
still the 50.7 degrees Oodnadatta suffered 37 years ago. NSW's high is still
the 50 degrees recorded 70 years ago.

What's more, not one of the world's seven continents has set a record high
temperature since 1974. Europe's high remains the 50 degrees measured in
Spain 128 years ago, before the invention of the first true car.

GLIKSON: Isolated extreme weather events occurred throughout history, but
the rapid rise in mean global temperatures since early 20 the century (+ 0.8
degrees C, or 1.3 degrees C once the masking effect of emitted sulphur
aerosols is accounted for), and related shift of global climate zones by
hundreds of km toward the poles , exacerbate these events, including
droughts. Climate "skeptics" consistently confuse the weather for the
climate, cite isolated weather events and decline to look at decade-scale
climate trends, as explained among others in Pittock's authoritative books.

MYTH 5 - THE SEAS ARE GETTING HOTTER

BOLT: Wrong. If anything, the seas are getting colder. For five years, a
network of 3175 automated bathythermographs has been deployed in the oceans
by the Argo program, a collaboration between 50 agencies from 26 countries.
Warming believer Josh Willis, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
reluctantly concluded: "There has been a very slight cooling . . ." 

GLIKSON: Check NASA's website and find out that ocean surface temperatures
have been rising through the last few decades (for example by 0.2 to 1.0
degrees C in most areas during 2000-2009 relative to 1951-1980), while
lesser areas cooled by -0.2 to -0.5 mostly in the Pacific Ocean, partly in
connection with La-Nina phases. Sea surface temperature increases around
Australia are reported by CSIRO (" Ocean warming on the rise "), stating:
"The team of Australian and US climate researchers found the world's oceans
warmed and rose at a rate 50 percent faster in the last four decades of the
20th century than documented in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change Report (IPCC AR4).

MYTH 6 - THE SEAS ARE RISING

BOLT: Wrong. For almost three years, the seas have stopped rising, according
to the Jason-1 satellite mission monitored by the University of Colorado.

That said, the seas have risen steadily and slowly for the past 10,000 years
through natural warming, and will almost certainly resume soon.

But there is little sign of any accelerated rises, even off Tuvalu or the
Maldives, islands often said to be most threatened with drowning.

Professor Nils-Axel Moerner, one of the world's most famous experts on sea
levels, has studied the Maldives in particular and concluded there has been
no net rise there for 1250 years.

Venice is still above water.

GLIKSON: From about 9000 years ago sea level have risen by about 15 meters
(Siddall et al, 2003: Nature, 423: 853-853). Rates of sea level rise rose
from a mean of 0.11 cm/year during 1870 -1970 to a mean of 0.25 cm/year
during 1970 - 2006 and are currently rising at 0.35 cm/year, confirmed by
both tide gauge measurements ( US Geological Survey ) and satellite
measurements.

MYTH 7 - CYCLONES ARE GETTING WORSE

BOLT: Wrong. Ryan Maue of Florida State University recently measured the
frequency, intensity and duration of all hurricanes and cyclones to compile
an Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index.

His findings? The energy index is at its lowest level for more than 30
years.

The World Meteorological Organization, in its latest statement on cyclones,
said it was impossible to say if they were affected by man's gases: "Though
there is evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable
anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date, no firm
conclusion can be made on this point." 

GLIKSON: Cyclone intensity, related to sea surface temperatures, has risen
according to Webster et al. 2005, who observe "We examined the number of
tropical cyclones and cyclone days as well as tropical cyclone intensity
over the past 35 years, in an environment of increasing sea surface
temperature. A large increase was seen in the number and proportion of
hurricanes reaching categories 4 and 5. The largest increase occurred in the
North Pacific, Indian, and Southwest Pacific Oceans, and the smallest
percentage increase occurred in the North Atlantic Ocean. These increases
have taken place while the number of cyclones and cyclone days has decreased
in all basins except the North Atlantic during the past decade.

MYTH 8 - THE GREAT BARRIER REEF IS DYING

BOLT: Wrong. Yes, in 1999, Professor Ove Hoegh-Gulberg, our leading reef
alarmist and administrator of more than $30 million in warming grants, did
claim the reef was threatened by warming, and much had turned white.

But he then had to admit it had made a "surprising" recovery.

Yes, in 2006 he again warned high temperatures meant "between 30 and 40 per
cent of coral on Queensland's Great Barrier Reef could die within a month".

But he later admitted this bleaching had "minimal impact". Yes, in 2007 he
again warned that temperature changes of the kind caused by global warming
were bleaching the reef.

But this month fellow Queensland University researchers admitted in a study
that reef coral had once more made a "spectacular recovery", with "abundant
corals re-established in a single year". The reef is blooming.

GLIKSON: That the Great Barrier Reef is suffering from elevated
temperatures, increased acidity and coral bleaching is beyond dispute as has
been observed by numerous studies, including the University of Queensland,
the Marine Park Authority and the Australian National University.

MYTH 9 - OUR SNOW SEASONS ARE SHORTER

BOLT: Wrong. Poor snow falls in 2003 set off a rash of headlines predicting
warming doom. The CSIRO typically fed the hysteria by claiming global
warming would strip resorts of up to a quarter of their snow by 2018.

Yet the past two years have been bumper seasons for Victoria's snow resorts,
and this year could be just as good, with snow already falling in NSW and
Victoria this past week. 

GLIKSON: Typically climate skeptics will look at annual or biannual changes
rather than longer term decade-scale trends, and this applies to the ever
shortening snow seasons in the Australian snow fields.

MYTH 10 - TSUNAMIS AND OTHER DISASTERS ARE GETTING WORSE

BOLT: Are you insane? Tsunamis are in fact caused by earthquakes. Yet there
was World Vision boss Tim Costello last week, claiming that Asia was a
"region, thanks to climate change, that has far more cyclones, tsunamis,
droughts".

Wrong, wrong and wrong, Tim. But what do facts matter now to a warming
evangelist when the cause is so just?

And so any disaster is now blamed on man-made warming the way they once were
on Satan. See for yourself <http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm>  on
the full list, including kidney stones, volcanic eruptions, lousy wine,
insomnia, bad tempers, Vampire moths and bubonic plagues. Nothing is too
far-fetched to be seized upon by carpetbaggers and wild preachers as signs
of a warming we can't actually see.

Not for nothing are polar bears the perfect symbol of this faith - bears
said to be threatened by warming, when their numbers have in fact increased.

Bottom line: fewer people now die from extreme weather events, whether
cyclones, floods or blinding heatwaves.

Read that in a study by Indur Goklany, who represented the US at the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: "There is no signal in the
mortality data to indicate increases in the overall frequencies or
severities of extreme weather events, despite large increases in the
population at risk."

So stop this crazy panic.

First step: check again your list of the signs you thought you saw of global
warming. How many are true? What do you think, and why do you think it?

Yes, the world may resume warming in one year or 100. But it hasn't been
warming as the alarmists said it must if man were to blame, and certainly
not as the media breathlessly keeps claiming.

Best we all just settle down, then, and wait for the proof - the real proof.
After all, panicking over invisible things is so undignified, don't you
think?

GLIKSON: This point is answered in the reference to Webster et al. 2005
above, showing the frequency of category 4 and 5 cyclones has increased
during the last decade.

Dr Andrew Glikson is with the Research School of Earth Science & School of
Archaeology & Anthropology at Australian National University in Canberra. He
can be reached at: andrew.glikson at anu.edu.au. Read other articles
<http://dissidentvoice.org/author/AndrewGlikson/>  by Andrew.

 

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