Case for Global Cooling Up in Smoke (and Ash)
Melanie Fitzpatrick is a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
False claims of global-cooling and climate-conspiracy theories suffered a major blow this month with the release of new temperature data and yet another investigation debunking wild accusations against climate scientists.
At the same time, a volcanic eruption in Iceland demonstrated what real global cooling could look like, but volcanoes won't be enough to save us from the all-to real threat of climate change.
For a number of years, global warming contrarians have pointed to 1998, the hottest year on record, to make their case that temperatures have fallen since then. But they conveniently ignore the long-term upward trend in average global temperatures over the past several decades, while overemphasizing the expected natural fluctuations that make individual years somewhat hotter or colder than average.
In fact, the world just experienced one of the hottest months on record. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that last month was the warmest March in its record book, which stretches back to the 1880s. The average global monthly temperature was 1.39degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average for March. While we can't draw strong conclusions from a single month, the string of record-setting average temperatures like this is a harbinger of climate change.
Spring is arriving earlier, just as climate scientists have projected. In northern states such as Maine, Wisconsin and Michigan, the average temperature in March was more than 5 degrees F higher than historic norms. With earlier springs than just half a century ago, plants are flowering earlier, downpours are becoming heavier, and, in northern states, rain is more likely to fall than snow. These changes are disruptive and costly for us and they threaten the survival of many plants and animals.
Climate science contrarians also have been attacking scientists personally and making false claims about the contents of emails stolen from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. These specious claims have been refuted by scientists, university inquiries, and independent sources such as the Associated Press and Factcheck.org, but the contrarians have persisted in spinning their conspiracy theories.
The University of East Anglia just released an independent review of the stolen emails. The review did include some criticism of how the scientists did their work, but it concluded that climate scientists did not manipulate their data or findings. Previous investigations by Penn State University and the British Parliament also cleared scientists of wrongdoing.
The response from contrarians? They insist the independent investigators are party to the conspiracy. When will these conspiracy-mongers stop this nonsense? Perhaps never. After all, some people believe the United States faked the Apollo Moon landing.
The Ash Cloud
If contrarians want to find a true potential source for global cooling, they need look no further than the massive ash cloud from Iceland's Mt. Eyjafjallaj?kull. When sulfur dioxide from volcanic eruptions enters the stratosphere, it converts into tiny sulfuric acid particles that act like mirrors, reflecting sunlight back into space and cooling the planet. Volcanoes that emit the right size particles into the right part of the atmosphere for a long enough time can cool the climate for several years. That happened in 1991 in the Philippines when Mt. Pinatubo erupted.
But Eyjafjallaj?kull's eruption pales in comparison to past climate-cooling volcanic eruptions. And even if a volcanic eruption released enough sulfur dioxide to temporarily cool the planet, the heat-trapping carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and destroying forests would still pose a significant threat. Unlike volcanic ash and sulfur compounds, which will settle out of the atmosphere within a few weeks or years, carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for decades and even centuries.
Ultimately our fate is up to us. Yes, there are uncertainties about how rapidly the Earth will warm, but the biggest uncertainty is the amount of heat-trapping emissions we will allow to go into the atmosphere. Allowing emissions to continue to grow could lock us into costly climate disruption. Conversely, we could dramatically reduce heat-trapping emissions by switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. We can't avoid all climate change, but we can -- and should -- avoid its worst consequences.
(The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.)
By Melanie Fitzpatrick
Special to CBSNews.com
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved. False claims of global-cooling and climate-conspiracy theories suffered a major blow this month with the release of new temperature data and yet another investigation debunking wild accusations against climate scientists.
At the same time, a volcanic eruption in Iceland demonstrated what real global cooling could look like, but volcanoes won't be enough to save us from the all-to real threat of climate change.
For a number of years, global warming contrarians have pointed to 1998, the hottest year on record, to make their case that temperatures have fallen since then. But they conveniently ignore the long-term upward trend in average global temperatures over the past several decades, while overemphasizing the expected natural fluctuations that make individual years somewhat hotter or colder than average.
In fact, the world just experienced one of the hottest months on record. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that last month was the warmest March in its record book, which stretches back to the 1880s. The average global monthly temperature was 1.39degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average for March. While we can't draw strong conclusions from a single month, the string of record-setting average temperatures like this is a harbinger of climate change.
Spring is arriving earlier, just as climate scientists have projected. In northern states such as Maine, Wisconsin and Michigan, the average temperature in March was more than 5 degrees F higher than historic norms. With earlier springs than just half a century ago, plants are flowering earlier, downpours are becoming heavier, and, in northern states, rain is more likely to fall than snow. These changes are disruptive and costly for us and they threaten the survival of many plants and animals.
Climate science contrarians also have been attacking scientists personally and making false claims about the contents of emails stolen from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. These specious claims have been refuted by scientists, university inquiries, and independent sources such as the Associated Press and Factcheck.org, but the contrarians have persisted in spinning their conspiracy theories.
The University of East Anglia just released an independent review of the stolen emails. The review did include some criticism of how the scientists did their work, but it concluded that climate scientists did not manipulate their data or findings. Previous investigations by Penn State University and the British Parliament also cleared scientists of wrongdoing.
The response from contrarians? They insist the independent investigators are party to the conspiracy. When will these conspiracy-mongers stop this nonsense? Perhaps never. After all, some people believe the United States faked the Apollo Moon landing.
The Ash Cloud
If contrarians want to find a true potential source for global cooling, they need look no further than the massive ash cloud from Iceland's Mt. Eyjafjallaj?kull. When sulfur dioxide from volcanic eruptions enters the stratosphere, it converts into tiny sulfuric acid particles that act like mirrors, reflecting sunlight back into space and cooling the planet. Volcanoes that emit the right size particles into the right part of the atmosphere for a long enough time can cool the climate for several years. That happened in 1991 in the Philippines when Mt. Pinatubo erupted.
But Eyjafjallaj?kull's eruption pales in comparison to past climate-cooling volcanic eruptions. And even if a volcanic eruption released enough sulfur dioxide to temporarily cool the planet, the heat-trapping carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and destroying forests would still pose a significant threat. Unlike volcanic ash and sulfur compounds, which will settle out of the atmosphere within a few weeks or years, carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for decades and even centuries.
Ultimately our fate is up to us. Yes, there are uncertainties about how rapidly the Earth will warm, but the biggest uncertainty is the amount of heat-trapping emissions we will allow to go into the atmosphere. Allowing emissions to continue to grow could lock us into costly climate disruption. Conversely, we could dramatically reduce heat-trapping emissions by switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. We can't avoid all climate change, but we can -- and should -- avoid its worst consequences.
(The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.)
By Melanie Fitzpatrick
Special to CBSNews.com
For now, it appears that we are experiencing a repeat Dalton Minimum. So until 2020, lets see what this does to the global temps. After 2020, some feel we are headed straight into a Maunder Minimum. Hmm! Many more years of global cooling maybe?
Reference Article: "Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2: on the construction of the "Greenhouse Effect Global Warming" dogma". By Tom V. Segalstad
Mineralogical-Geological Museum University of Oslo
Sars' Gate 1, N-0562 Oslo Norway
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930).
Abstract
The three evidences of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that the apparent contemporary atmospheric CO2 increase is anthropogenic, is discussed and rejected: CO2 measurements from ice cores; CO2 measurements in air; and carbon isotope data in conjunction with carbon cycle modelling.
It is shown why the ice core method and its results must be rejected; and that current air CO2 measurements are not validated and their results subjectively "edited". Further it is shown that carbon cycle modelling based on non-equilibrium models, remote from observed reality and chemical laws, made to fit non-representative data through the use of non-linear ocean evasion "buffer" correction factors constructed from a pre-conceived idea, constitute a circular argument and with no scientific validity.
Both radioactive and stable carbon isotopes show that the real atmospheric CO2 residence time (lifetime) is only about 5 years, and that the amount of fossil-fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is maximum 4%. Any CO2 level rise beyond this can only come from a much larger, but natural, carbon reservoir with much higher 13-C/12-C isotope ratio than that of the fossil fuel pool, namely from the ocean, and/or the lithosphere, and/or the Earth's interior.
The apparent annual atmospheric CO2 level increase, postulated to be anthropogenic, would constitute only some 0.2% of the total annual amount of CO2 exchanged naturally between the atmosphere and the ocean plus other natural sources and sinks. It is more probable that such a small ripple in the annual natural flow of CO2 would be caused by natural fluctuations of geophysical processes.
13-C/12-C isotope mass balance calculations show that IPCC's atmospheric residence time of 50-200 years make the atmosphere too light (50% of its current CO2 mass) to fit its measured 13-C/12-C isotope ratio. This proves why IPCC's wrong model creates its artificial 50% "missing sink". IPCC's 50% inexplicable "missing sink" of about 3 giga-tonnes carbon annually should have led all governments to reject IPCC's model. When such rejection has not yet occurred, it beautifully shows the result of the "scare-them-to-death" influence principle.
IPCC's "Greenhouse Effect Global Warming" dogma rests on invalid presumptions and a rejectable non-realistic carbon cycle modelling which simply refutes reality, like the existence of carbonated beer or soda "pop" as we know it.
IMHO, it is absolutely ridiculous to think that humanity can draw a conclusion or have a good idea about what is going on with the climate, other than in polar regions temperatures are warming. Any readings from metropolitan areas should be nullified b/c an urban environment is much different than a wild environment, and changes much faster than in a wild area. Nonetheless, we should just be trying to take better care of our planet, because no matter what else happens, it is impossible to live like we are now forever.
When I googled for 'global cooling' in the news for today , two new articles came up, this on and another about the Arctic Ice expanding at record rates in April. Here is an excerpt
"The Arctic ice set 30 records in April, one for each day. According to satellite data received by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the Arctic was more ice bound each day of April than it had been any other corresponding day in April since its sensors began tracking the extent of Arctic Ice in mid 2002."
Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/05/03/lawrence-solomon-arctic-ice-sets-records-in-april-could-auger-global-cooling.aspx#ixzz0mv0vKVSw
So I guess we are even? Maybe not! here is another damaging reference that hurts the deniers...cooling deniers....
"New Scientist, a widely respected magazine that until recently had blamed human activity for the global warming, is now advising its readers that climate scientists may have had their blinders on in ignoring a dominant role for the Sun."
Damn...you guys just can't win!
The scientific data that I have researched for global climate change is overwhelming and compelling to support man's SIGNIFICANT contribution to the problem.
End of "debate", end of story, end of life as we know it. Now collect your fees from Exxon and Chevron and move on.
New study says oceans' chemistry is changing rapidly.
The chemistry of the oceans is changing faster than it has in hundreds of thousands of years because of the carbon dioxide being absorbed from the atmosphere, The National Research Council reported today.
Carbon dioxide and other industrial gases have been a concern for several years because of their impact on the air, raising global temperatures in a process called the greenhouse effect.
One factor easing that warmth has been the amount of CO2 taken up by the oceans, but that has also caused scientific concerns because the chemicals make the water more acidic, which can affect sea life.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, the PH of ocean water has declined from 8.2 to 8.1 and a further decline of 0.2 to 0.3 units is expected by the end of this century, according to the Research Council, and arm of the National Academy of Science.
The current rate of change "exceeds any known change in ocean chemistry for at least 800,000 years," the report said.
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100422/ap_on_sc/us_sci_acid_oceans
Even in salt water fish tanks, the PH should be between 8.1 to 8.4, with reef tanks being more sensitive with the optimum PH levels in those tanks needing to be towards the higher levels. All ocean life will be affected detrimentally as the PH levels continue to drop below 8.1.
------------------
I post facts all the time to counter your OPINION blogs, much like your post about Northern Finland temperatures -- only a very small part of the GLOBAL picture.
As I said before, from the NSIDC web site, they have been calling the winter of 2009-2010 an extremely strong negative Arctic oscillation, which usually makes the Arctic temperature above normal.......but at the same time the currents and winds do no allow the ice to flow outwards from the Arctic, thus allowing larger sea ice extent. This is a FACT!
But....on that same note, and even with Arctic sea ice levels 95% of the 1979-2000 average this winter, which coincides with their negative Arctic oscillation data, winter sea ice extent means NOTHING to what the September 2010 sea ice extent will be. Even so, the downward trend still continues over the past few decades, so one year higher or lower means nothing over the long term.
The March sea ice extent for the Arctic has shown a decline of 2.6% per decade over the past 30+ years, with other months showing a much higher rate of decline.
Sept. 17, 2009
Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the third lowest extent since the start of satellite measurements in 1979. While this year's minimum extent is above the record and near-record minimums of the last two years, it further reinforces the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent observed over the past 30 years.
nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2009/091709.html
louie, you'd do better sticking with the facts by real scientists like those at the NSIDC, than from opinion blogs and just making it up!