GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE MODELS

Personal observations are one form of empirical evidence, but they can obviously be misleading, and when solely relied upon, approach a solipsistic worldview. To wit: All the models of global climate change I have heard about indicate that extremes in weather events will increasingly become the norm. From that, we can expect more extreme storms of all kinds, including snow and ice storms, and extremes in temperature events, including record freezes. All this at the same time as the overall Planet increasingly becomes warmer, particularly at night and at the poles.

What many people forget is that the models are showing that the global climate, in its regional manifestations, will become more erratic and unstable. How this might play out in your area (and mine) remains to be seen. Yes, it is possible that your region could experience a colder winter as your area becomes warmer overall throughout the year. This is why scientists look at the data, and why we should listen to what climate scientists, as a whole, say.


At this point, you should claim the huge amount of data and the thousands of climate scientists are all suspect, even dishonest.


At what point, and at what level of evidence (yes, including taking into account natural climate cycles), will it require for millions of ordinary citizens to understand the science message that is given to us? I really am curious; is it religion or political ideology or a mass media source or worldview that humans are not capable of changing the Planet in a significant way?

GLOBAL COOLING AND ICED TEA (PARTY)

I explain the supposed global cooling since 1998 by saying it did not happen. It is bogus use of data.

The present decade has been the warmest in modern recorded history. Every year this century has been warmer than any year before 1998.

The claim that there is a global cooling trend occurring at present uses 1998, an abnormally warm year, as baseline, and then says no year since has been as warm. Use either 1997 or 1999 as baseline and a different mini-trend appears. The "cool trenders" (including the Tea Party) are manipulating the record with a preconceived end. The supposed cooling claim also ignores smaller fluctuations within longer trends. The record shows several fluctuations since 1998. But the longer trend is clearly upward toward warmer temperatures. And, of course, greater amounts of greenhouse gases are being added to global atmosphere--thus the projections of continuing increases in global temperatures.

Besides, NOAA has newer data that show 2005 was warmer than 1998. NOAA also re-examined its data and found no cooling trend.

No need to rely on me, though. Just last week (27 October 2009) there was the Associated Press (AP) story all over the media (except Fox Opinion Network, of course) about AP presenting the NOAA temperature data to four statisticians in a blind study to see whether they could detect a trend in the data. They did not. Read the truncated AP article in the Philadelphia Inquirer (http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/daily/20091027_Number_crunchers_reject_global_cooling.html ) or the longer one (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gGAa00xryzkYa7FUhfip-CDPM_tgD9BIUU5G0)

IS GREENLAND MELTING?

Whether Greenland is melting or not is a vital issue for future public policy and future human life on this Planet. Below is a brief discussion.

Recently I navigated to a website http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/30/the-ice-in-greenland-is-growing/ (provided by some global-warming deniers) about ice growth in Greenland (it contends that the Greenland ice sheet [GrIS] is actually increasing; and, therefore, global warming is a myth) and found that it is only anecdotal about snow drifts building up around a DEW radar installation--with a photo to prove it! In addition, to buttress its argument, the website provides a map and reference to a research article by Johannessen et al. (2005. "Recent Ice-Sheet Growth in the Interior of Greenland," Science, 310(5750):1013-1016). I went to that article and read that the researchers measured the altitude of the GrIS above 1,500 meters, between 1992 and 2003, and found that it increased in height an average of 6.4 centimeters per year. Below 1,500 meters the average elevation change was minus 2.0 cm/yr. (the thinning margins of the ice sheet), for an average increase of the entire ice sheet of 5.4 cm/yr.

But, the Johannessen et al. research was not carried out to determine volume, it was simply about height above sea level of two separate regions of the GrIS--interior and margins. And, it makes no sense to average a positive and a negative to arrive at average change for the whole ice sheet, when the interior is a far larger expanse than the narrow (but growing) margins.

So, I found a more recent article (Schuenemann et al. 2009. "Synoptic Forcing of Precipitation over Greenland: Climatology for 1961-99," Journal of Hydrometerology 10) which states, "Recent changes of the GrIS include not only a thickening of the interior of the ice sheet [i.e., it is increasing in elevation in the interior, as the Johannessen article above shows] but also a thinning along the edges" [as the Johannessen above also found]. But, importantly, it goes on to state that, "The most recent analyses have shown AN OVERALL NET LOSS OF MASS because of increasing melt and ice discharge" [my emphasis].

From the above, I conclude that the GrIS is increasing in elevation in the interior, while it is thinning and shrinking at the edges, and that OVERALL there is a decrease in mass. This is the (hugely significant) problem: the Greenland ice sheet is melting overall.

Furthermore, the melting of the GrIS, say Schuenemann et al., "has very likely contributed to the rise in sea level" due to its "capacity to influence global climate..." in several ways.

I thank those deniers for the continuing challenge to find for myself the science of global climate change. I also thank them for the continuing confirmation that there are interests who present anecdotal evidence (e.g. snow drifts building up around a radar site) and link it to research that does not support what the anecdotal evidence purports to say (e.g. the Johannessen et al. article above).

Once again, I feel confident about what science is telling us about global climate change. But, I continue to wonder about the deniers. Why not stay with the science, instead of promoting an anti-science? Believe me, if science begins to tell me that global climate change is not happening, or that the end result might be a global cooling (which is possible, if there is a tipping point with the Greenland ice-sheet melt setting off a reduction of the North Atlantic haline circulation)--or whatever science tells us--then I will believe what the CONSENSUS of scientists tells us.

Why not? To do otherwise is to take an ideological stance that will continue to confuse the public about what science says is happening and will delay critical changes that humanity will have to make if it is to survive. The issue of whether Greenland is melting is one of the critical issues that we must leave to science and not to ideology. It is crucial that we believe the science. It is folly to do otherwise.

HEAR OUT THE FRINGE

Global warming deniers could well make their case that there is no truth to anthropogenic causes of global climate change, and even that CO2 has no climate effects, without claiming that phony science is creating a phony crisis (global climate change) that would destroy industrialization.

Here are my thoughts: First, even if CO2 were not found as a force agent, the processes that produce CO2 also co-produce other harmful byproducts, such as NOx, CO, and sulphur compounds, all of which are harmful either to humans and/or to water bodies, and thus aquatic life. Not to mention particulates that are injurious to human lungs. Thus, preventing production and harmful effects of CO2 (although some global-warming deniers deny this, too) would, in any case, mitigate other deleterious effects.

Mitigating production of all harmful byproducts of industrialization does not necessarily destroy industrialization, as it would change it for the good. Therefore, I believe the summative statement--the mitigation of production and harmful effects of CO2 would destroy industrialization--is extreme.

For someone who has been a near-continous student throughout his sexagenarian life, now working on degree number eight (four Master's and now PhD Geography), admittedly means little in climate debates, especially when I am outside my usual areas of interest. I grant you that I must rely on secondary literature. But, can global-warming deniers convince me that they understand primary scientific literature any better than I?

One last comment: I am probably more open-minded than most people you might run across in the climate change debates. As a teacher, I take seriously my obligations to understand all sides of a discussion--and then take a stand. So far, until the majority of scientists change their views (and, yes, you can be assured that Kuhn and his treatise about scientific revolutions was high on the reading list of more than one of my Master's), there is no compelling reason why I should change mine. I shall, though, continue to hear out the fringe.

CLIMATE OBSCURANTISTS

To label someone as "obscurantist," someone who simply goes along with the position of the overwhelming majority of climate scientists, is odd. I am not a climate scientist, so my stance does not veil, shade, or hide anything; instead, it promotes what most climate scientists say. That would be a strange sort of obscurantism, indeed: to believe and promote and bring into light what most authorities believe.

What mystifies me is the project that some people have to promote the claims of only a very few climate scientists; and, to promote nonauthoritative interpretations of research, including the interpretations of U.S. Sen. James Inhofe's office. To wit: Why place a slant on the statements of a NASA scientist, and discount them? It is worth repeating this passage from a recent statement by a NASA scientist:
"Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO [Pacific Decadal Oscillation] and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming..." And, "These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities." This is a NASA climate scientist speaking.

The climate scientist in the article says that PDO can hide the effects of global warming. But some say this statement is a gesture of deference toward other scientists, such as James Hansen (who was recently collared by NASA). But, to provide the statement of the NASA climate scientist and then to say he was equivocating--this is an instance of veiling, shading, of obscurantism.

WHAT GLOBAL-WARMING DENIERS SHOULD DO

Global-warming deniers would do us all a service by desisting from repeating what media were saying decades ago. That some in the media, in the 1970s, were popularizing the idea of an impending expansion of the ice sheets is not relevant now. Global-warming deniers make the point that since some in the media were "wrong" then, they are "wrong" now. That historical argument is not relevant to what climate science says today.

A more accurate term is global "climate change," since some parts of the Planet are warming and others are cooling; some parts are drying and others are becoming wetter. The point is that global climate is in flux.

Yes, there is a minority of climate scientists who theorize that rapid global warming will cause an extremely rapid cooling, especially in Europe. This is based on Greenland ice-core analyses which show an extreme cooling--the 8.2ka event--when the thermohaline circulation of the North Atlantic was disrupted by the melting of the Laurentine ice sheets, thus subsequently causing a rapid advance of polar ice sheets. This is what the film "The Day after Tomorrow" based its hyperbole on. But, this is a side issue about a possible result of anthropogenic altering of global climate.

I can imagine deniers saying that humans did not cause the 8.2ka cooling event. This is true, but it does not disprove anthropogenic influence NOW. And, please, just because professor Willie Soon publishes in refereed journals does not mean that the rest of climate scientists (and the media) are involved in a great climate hoax. As a climate professor friend of mine told me, "Lee, global warming is real; humans are causing it; and you should keep teaching it." And, I will, unless he and the majority of climate scientists change their evaluation of planetary climate change.

What global-warming deniers should do, instead, is convince us that MOST climate scientists are global climate-change skeptics. This is, of course, not true. Until the deniers can demonstrate this, why should we believe what MOST--actually, the overwhelming majority--climate scientists say. And, there is no need for deniers to offer the claims of the discredited Oregon (?) group of scientists. Deniers can try to chip away at what the majority of climate scientists are saying, but until THEY, the climate scientists, change their minds, then it is prudent for humanity to take to heart their warnings.

Why should climate-change deniers devote themselves to go against the majority of climate scientists? I must conclude that it is because of some kind of politico-ideological faith. Positing an argument based on a Kuhnian scientific revolution will not work, either. Again, if a majority of climate scientists say it is time to throw out the current paradigm, then I'll be with them. So, far, though, the evidence is mounting for global climate change caused anthropogenically.

CO2-AS-TRIGGERING-EVENT: A COUNTERARGUMENT

Here's my counterargument to claims that increases in global CO2 do not "cause" global warming. A straw argument claims that scientists say that rises in global atmospheric CO2 precede global warming events. Climate scientists do NOT claim that, as says the section below that I copied from a recent review article in New Scientist.

The article says that increases in CO2 sometimes lagged behind the beginning of warming events as many as 800 years during past episodes. But this is no argument for claims that CO2 is NOT a greenhouse gas nor that current warming is NOT due to anthropogenic causes. Perhaps the problem is semantic: that between "trigger" and "cause." Build-up of CO2 is not the trigger, but it is a driver of atmospheric warming.

The article: Climate myths. Brahic, Catherine, Chandler, David L., Le Page, Michael, McKenna, Phil, Pearce, Fred, New Scientist, 5/19/2007, Vol. 194, Issue 2604.

From the article: "With so much at stake, the last thing we need is for the real issues to be obscured by discredited arguments and wild theories. We must act now to avoid the worst effects. So for those who are not sure what to believe, here's our guide to climate myths and misconceptions. [...] Decide for yourself."

"Myth: Carbon dioxide levels only rose after the start of warm periods, so CO2 does not cause warming. [...] [I]t appears the lags might sometimes have been 800 years or more. [...]These lags show that rising CO2 did not trigger the initial warming at the end of these ice ages--but then, no one claims it did. They do not undermine the idea that more CO2 in the atmosphere warms the planet."

The climate-change scenario is complex and models have not reached full potential. But, claiming that because increases in CO2 levels do not precede warming events and that there have been triggering events such as ones due to Milankovitch cycles (periodic changes in sun radiation) does not fully explain rises in warming, especially the recent one that we are now in.

Here is how the scientists in New Scientist begin: "Our planet's climate is anything but simple. It depends on the interplay of many factors, from massive events in the sun to microscopic creatures in the oceans. Yet a clear picture has emerged, supported by an overwhelming amount of evidence: the world is warming, this warming is due to increasing levels of greenhouse gases caused by human activity, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too, with ever more serious consequences."

As a physical geographer, who is a climate scientist and my mentor on this subject, said to me last year: "Global warming is real; anthropogenic causes are real; and you should feel it your duty to teach it."

And, I do.

INJECTING CHAOS--PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL

I was mentally preparing to walk into my school after our three-day Mardi Gras holiday and announce to anyone who would listen that I had been exposed to some legitimate research that shows that CO2 has no influence on global climate change.

After all, some have concluded that this is what the scientists found whose study is summarized in ScienceDaily (linked below). I went to the linked article. It says nothing about CO2. I then sought out Anastasios Tsonis, the lead investigator, by going to his Webpage and looking at his articles there. He is a mathematical climate scientist who studies climate cycles statistics and chaos (and refers to global warming as a fact). There is nothing there about CO2 not being a factor. He mentions nothing about external inputs to the system, except to conclude in one of his articles--quote: "Global warming has resulted in an increase in randomness in the system"--that as the climate warms, there is greater random, instead of synchronized, chaos in the system. This is hardly a denunciation of anthropogenic global climate change.

If you click on this link http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801175711.htm,
it takes you to the ScienceDaily Webpage which summarizes the Tsonis et al. article. Notice that in the left margin, under "References," there is a link titled, "Consensus of scientists regarding global warming." This might be interesting to you, as it shows there is a consensus.

Again, in order to understand our current situation and not inject any personal bias into my teaching, I have sought out research that supposedly debunks current views about global climate change. The Tsonis et al. article is legitimate research by lgitimate researchers. It does not do what some claim it does. They have made a conclusion that the researchers themselves have not done.

I'll return to school in a few days and again feel justified in siding with what nearly all climate scientists say: Human-caused inputs to the system are wreaking havoc (increasing randomness) to the system. It's going to become interesting in the coming years. I'll keep an eye on science to see what it says.

I'm forming a social theory which says that as the Planet's normal physical cycles become more disrupted from outside inputs (read anthropogenicity), there will occur concomitant social disruption, including to civic culture, part of which includes valuing the only experts we have on climate--real climate scientists. In the meantime, we will have to expect and contend with those who externally inject random chaos into the public's views on global climate change.

WHY BELIEVE GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE?

As a high-school teacher of geography, I teach about global climate change (as the scientists label it). But, the way I see my role as an educator, as one who sees the need for intellectual honesty, propels me to continually revisit why I believe as I do, the bases for those beliefs, and on the other hand the arguments of opposing views. For these reasons, I read material about and by climate-change deniers. I remain unconvinced.

Here is one thought. As a non-scientist, I see no reason to disbelieve what the overwhelming majority of climate scientists believe to be true. If you argue that the sociology of scientific paradigms shows that through time scientific paradigms become ripe for eventual overthrow, as posited by Kuhn, you would be voicing the accepted view of science. But this does not mean EVERY paradigm is destined for the dustbin of history. True, science itself is always in flux--that’s the nature of science: continually testing evidence and forming testable hypotheses. All paradigms are modified through continuing scientific investigation. So, many of the specifics of current climate science will certainly become modified. But as of now, practically every bona fide climate scientist supports the view that some significant percentage of present climate change is anthropogenic.

That’s good enough for me. Yes, you can muster a few climate scientists who oppose the prevailing views, but would you agree with me that they are no more than a handful compared to hundreds and probably thousands on the other side? True, they could all be wrong and the dominant paradigm re global climate change could be erroneous. However, it seems prudent to me to base my beliefs, and some aspects of my life, on the prevailing views, and to support policy makers who are following the prevailing science, and not follow the so very few climate change naysayers.

Two summers back, while at Texas State, I picked up a climatology journal and read about a meta-analysis of climatology research that found that there was NOT A SINGLE study published by climatologists in peer-reviewed climatology journals that refuted that global warming/global climate change is occurring and that anthropogenic causes are not real.

It is my duty, I feel, to believe as almost all the experts do. That seems prudent and even essential.