Gradually, global warming has moved from being the hypothetical doomsday rant of a few climate scientists to the No. 1 environmental concern of ordinary Americans. In North Carolina and elsewhere, people see signs of global warming — real and imagined — all around them. But there is still debate among scholars about the cause.
What do you think is causing temperatures to rise -- and what, if anything, should be done about it?
Here is my question (which I emailed on Friday and to which the professor did not respond):
The IPCC’s estimate of large-scale global warming in the future appears to be based on speculation that far too conclusive for professional scientific work. In the last 100 years, the IPCC’s prior report estimated about .6 degrees C of warming total. This assumes that our methods of estimating temperatures 100 years ago averaged planet-wide are of acceptable scientific precision, which it is quite reasonable to dispute. But taking that as a given, it is also generally accepted that the relationship of CO2 concentration to heat absorption is logarithmic in nature, such that the last unit of CO2 concentration increase has vastly less absorption impact than the first unit of CO2 concentration increase.
We have had over a doubling of CO2 concentration increase in the last 100 or so years, most of which has come in the last 50. In the last 50 years, the estimates are somewhere in the neighborhood of .3 degrees C increase in global temperatures total.
However, we are expected to believe that a further doubling of CO2 concentrations will have catastrophic increases in temperatures, on the order of 5-10 degrees C. Now, plainly that is absurd on its face, given the logarithmic relationship and the very low amount of warming we have so far observed during the period of high CO2 emissions. The only way climatologists can posit a disaster scenario is by hypothesizing that there will be feedback loops in the future that multiply the effect of the CO2-related temperature increases. All of these speculative feedback loop hypotheses built into the models are interesting and creative, but the sheer magnitude of them has to be dubious given that the feedback loops have not created catastrophic temperature increases in the last 100 years. Why would we have not already seen major feedback loops in operation that would turn a doubling of CO2 concentration into multiple-digit temperature increases? One would think that, given the logarithmic relationship, the feedback loops would also be much more muted than they have been in the past.
Even if a scientist can come up with a theory as to why the feedback loop hypotheses will spring into dramatic action in the future, should we be creating a major international bureaucratic regulatory mechanism that will substantially impact economic activity on the basis of such speculation? That strikes me as falling far short of professional, responsible science as it is practiced in nonpolitical scientific areas.
As non-politically correct as it may sound, I am not convinced that humans are the cause of Global Warming. There are academics who support this notion such as Professor Bob Carter who is a researcher at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University. I just believe that politicians are using this to push their political agenda.
Professor Bob Carter notwithstanding, the vast majority of the scientific community does agree that global warming is real and anthropogenically driven (at least in part). If there were scientific consensus that humans were NOT the problem, the current administration would not be trying to censor government scientists and reports with contrary findings. The only political agenda I can see being successfully pushed is the "if we deny it, it's not happening" approach employed by the White House and other irresponsible politicians.
Let's look at BTUs.
How many BTUs does it take to transform say 80 cubic miles of 32F degree ice into 32F degree water? If these same BTUs were then applied to 80 cubic miles of air at standard atmospheric pressure, how much will this air's temperature be increased by? ...or apply these same BTUs to 80 cubic miles of water (spread out over a relatively thin layer say 10 feet deep upon the surface of the oceans) if you want some smaller temperature values to work with.
Just something to get folks looking in the right direction and to think... a lot
The clever rhetorical trick that a lot of scientists in the media, as well as political advocates, use is to make the demonstrably true observation that human CO2 emissions are “at least a part” of the warming trend and imply that the major scientific debate is therefore over. That is incorrect. The CO2-temperature physics link is undeniable but also undeniably very weak. The only question is whether this very, very marginal difference between the heat absorption ability of, say, nitrogen versus CO2 causes a slight fraction of the warming or is the dominant cause. If it is only a slight fraction, it is still “at least a part” but not enough to justify creating an international governmental regulatory scheme.
Anyone with access to Google can find dozens and dozens of quality, high-level scientists in government and academia who question the soundness of the IPCC report, as well as other studies of climate change. Richard Lindzen of MIT is one name that pops up in my mind, but he is just one of many, and many of them have sterling liberal credentials. It is simply not a consensus. The last IPCC report was a case study in political science. The press releases posited lots of conclusions that appeared to be beyond debate, but when you got down to the specifics in the report, the summary didn’t match the science.
It is somewhat arrogant to think that mankind is THE cause of global warming. Isn't it safe to assume that the earth has experienced climate change in the past? Lets be honest, mankind has only been around for a tiny fraction of time during the existence of the earth. Earth has and will see worse long after mankind is gone. And to have Al Gore, the man who thinks he created the internet, pushing it doesn't help.
Greenhouse gases are only part of the problem
While most folks think the increase in greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is the source of the problem, in reality it is just part of a much larger problem. Here are several examples of other causes which are compounding with the effects of greenhouse gases as well as the positive feedbacks which are being associated with them as global warming continues:
(1) It appears the sun may actually be growing hotter with time.
Link
(2) What appears to be some direct evidence has been noted on Mars as well.
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/07/07/
(3) And then there's the Milankovitch Cycles to factor in too.
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/seasons_orbit.html
My conclusion: Yes, we have a problem - a huge problem and there's not much we can do about preventing things from going from bad to worse except perhaps to slow the process down somewhat by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. Polar ice caps and glaciers have been melting away for centuries now but only lately have we noticed how little is left in some areas as well as how this process is accelerating, and at about the same time frame as our technology has advanced enough to detect this approaching monstrosity so much more clearly. In my opinion it's like humanity is just now awakening from its long slumber upon the railroad tracks only to see an on-coming speeding locomotive bearing down and almost upon us.