Category — Climate Change

In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism, California Berkeley physicist Richard A. Muller describes the results from a recent re-examination of climate records and declares the debate is finally, really, truly over.

Skepticism, Muller explains, may have been warranted before (how generous of him!), but now that the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project folks have worked over the temperature data again, there’s no more cause for skepticism about whether or not the globe has warmed.

Warming Red Herring–and Five Real Questions

Muller is right about the globe warming, but his framing of the debate is a red herring: arguments over climate change are not about whether one accepts or “denies” that the climate has warmed in recent years.

In fact, as I’ve been explaining to some colleagues and friends today, the proponents of urgent action on climate change like to conflate five separate questions into one question in order to tag their opponents as being “unscientific,” “deniers,” “flat-earthers,” etc.

Here are the five key questions that Muller and any critic of so-called climate skepticism must confront:

Q1: How has the global average temperature changed in recent history?

Q2: How much of that change is attributable to human activities, and how much to a given activity?

Q3: What can we expect to happen to the climate in the future? [Read more →]

The numbers are in for this year’s summer sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean. By most measures the ice loss in 2011 came in a close second to the current and still record holder, 2007.

But the failure to set a new record for the least amount of summer Arctic sea ice observed during the satellite era (which begins in 1979) has done little to alter the overall picture of what is going on there. Summer sea ice has been in decline in the Arctic Ocean since, conservatively, the mid-20th century, and it has been picking up steam. And sea ice declines in the Arctic are now pretty clearly discernible in the other seasons as well. (What has been going on around Antarctica is a different story).

But for those who lose sleep at night over the implications of the Arctic sea ice loss to both the local, regional, and global environments, there is a silver lining. The rapid loss of sea ice, coupled with the slowed rate of global temperature increase, is a potential indicator that the earth’s climate sensitivity may be lower than climate model determinations. If true, this means less warming per future unit of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Sleep easier. [Read more →]

When I was director of public policy analysis at Enron in the late 1990s, I hired climatologist Gerald North of Texas A&M as a consultant to help me get to the bottom of the raging debate between climate ‘skeptics’ and ‘alarmists.’ I was Ken Lay’s speechwriter, and I was concerned that Enron’s embrace of climate alarmism (we had seven profit centers banking on priced CO2 from government intervention) was intellectually off base and thus violated the honesty plank of corporate responsibility.

It was money well spent. Dr. North was personable and honest, although he had a propensity to default toward alarmism if you did not challenge him. (Such is the neo-Malthusian propensity of most natural scientists who see nature as optimal and the human influence as only downside.) This is why I have called Dr. North, to his chagrin, the non-alarmist alarmist.

North distrusted climate models. He noted time and again the personal relationships and personality traits in driving the scientist’s views. And his own sensitivity estimate was at the bottom end of the IPCC range. (North’s climate sensitivity estimate of about 2ºC for a doubling of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases in equilibrium–with a plus/minus of .25ºC I would later find out–was an intuitive number.)

Some of North’s comments in the late 1990s may prove insightful when the science finally settles out, such as: [Read more →]

The political battle to control the flavor of scientific discourse claims another victim. This time it was Dr. David Stooksbury, the 12-year veteran State Climatologist of Georgia whose middle-of-the-road opinions about climate change apparently ran afoul of Georgia Governor Nathan Deal’s more conservative views.

In an executive order issued last week, Governor Deal stripped Dr. Stooksbury of his title and conferred it to a current employee of the state’s Environmental Protection Division—a position under direct government control, unlike Stooksbury’s rather independent office at the University of Georgia.

Certainly, the Governor can do as he chooses. And the newly tapped Georgia State Climatologist, Bill Murphey is seemingly qualified for the job. But, the move has all the signs of haste, and none of an orderly, well-thought out and coordinated transition. Which hints of something fishy going on.

It is worth bearing in mind that politics should consider scientific opinion, not shape it.

Stooksbury’s ouster is just the latest in a string of State Climatologists have been “replaced” in recent years for what seem like political reasons. [Read more →]

[Editor note: Marlo Lewis's extensive rebuttal to Scientific American writer David Appell in the comments section to yesterday's post (Andrew Dessler Challenges Rick Perry: How Should Perry Respond?) is presented as a full post today.]

Yesterday, Rob Bradley excerpted portions of a post I wrote last Friday on whether Gov. Rick Perry’s remarks about global warming at the GOP candidates forum in California were “anti-science.” My objective was to immunize the candidates — and the public generally – against a rhetorical trick that Al Gore and other alarmists have been using to great effect for years.

Alarmists would have us believe that all they have to do is establish that greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet, and then everything else they say follows as night follows day. If mankind is mainly or even partly responsible for the warmth of recent decades, then, supposedly, we are in the midst of a “planetary emergency” that “threatens the survival of civilization and the habitability of the Earth” (Al Gore’s phrase). From which it follows in turn that global warming is a “moral issue” (again, Gore’s phrase). In other words, we have no moral choice but to support their agenda of cap-and-trade, renewable energy mandates, and ‘clean-tech’ subsidies.

It’s a bit weird. Earlier generations of “progressive” thinkers proclaimed that “facts” are separate from “values” and that “ought” cannot be derived from “is.” Yet today’s progressives preach moral imperatives in the name of “the science.”

In any event, alarmists have been so successful in fostering the illusion that the key question is whether mankind is having an influence on global climate that some on the political Right feel they cannot effectively challenge the Al Gore-Greenpeace-EPA climate policy agenda unless they deny that, or at least question whether, greenhouse gases actually have a greenhouse (warming) effect.

This, alas, is exactly what alarmists want their opponents to say, not only because it makes them look “anti-science,” but also because it tacitly confirms the alarmist narrative. As if all we have to do is assent to a tautology (greenhouse gas emissions have a greenhouse effect) and we are compelled to concede every important scientific, political, and moral point in a very complex debate.

In my brief post, I tried to explain in soundbite-sized chunks how candidates should challenge both the planetary emergency thesis and the alleged moral necessity for Kyoto-style eco-energy planning.

David Appell’s Comments

Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, bombards us with so many images of droughts, floods, wild fires, and storms, that you might suppose the world is becoming a more dangerous place. My post noted that the data tell a different story. Deaths and death rates related to extreme weather have declined by 93% and 98%, respectively, since the 1920s. The 93% decline in total deaths is quite remarkable, given that global population is more than  three times larger than it was in the 1920s. Global warming, where is thy sting?

David Appell says “It’s easy to refute Lewis,” commenting: [Read more →]

I try not to play favorites between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to supporting or undermining the ideal of what Ludwig von Mises called the free and prosperous commonwealth. To this end, I have criticized Gov. Perry for his unfortunate windpower positions in Texas (see here and here), and I will do so again to the extent he buys into a government role in “green energy.”

Dessler Weighs In

A current spat is ongoing between Texas A&M climatologist Andrew Dessler and Perry, a front-runner for the Republican nomination for president of the United States, over global warming science and policy.

Dr. Dessler has written two opinion-page editorials published by the Houston Chronicle in recent months (July 10th and September 2nd) arguing that the science is settled in favor of climate alarm, meriting proactive public policy. And he takes pains to argue that he is an expert and real experts agree with him–knowing that the majority of the public does not trust his view. (The majority of nonclimate scientists, at least judging from the 37,000+ signatories here, also do not trust the climatologists, an interesting story in itself).

And with his out-there views, Dessler goes right after Gov. Perry, a fellow Texas Aggie and climate ‘skeptic’ (or ‘ultra-skeptic’).

In response to Dessler’s second op-ed, the Houston Chronicle  published my letter-to-the-editor last week. My (necessarily brief) submission read:

Climate scientist Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M makes a lawyer’s brief for climate alarmism and public policy activism. Gov. Perry would do well to make these points in refutation.

One, there is much we do not know about natural and/or human effects on climate, much of which points toward a benign if not positive view of future climate change.

Two, higher atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have many positive economic and ecological benefits, not only costs.

Three, economists cannot make a case for regulating carbon emissions short of (falsely) assuming the problem, the solution, and perfect government implementation of the solution.

And four, political attempts to curb fossil fuel usage are all pain and no gain.

In place of Big Brother, a far better approach would be to employ carbon-based energies to make us wealthier to deal with whatever future problems may arise—climate, weather or otherwise. [Read more →]

“The short-term rate of global sea level rise has decreased by about 25% since the release of the AR4—and a new paper shows that some 15% of the observed rise comes not from global warming, but instead from global dewatering…. [R]ather than raising its projections of sea level rise, perhaps the IPCC ought to consider lowering them once again.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is under pressure to revisit its projections of the expected amount of sea level rise by the year 2100. Many rather influential types are pushing for the IPCC to dramatically increase its central estimate by some 2-3 times above the value given in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

Not so fast!

Nature speaks with a contrary voice, political agendas aside. The short-term rate of global sea level rise has decreased by about 25% since the release of the AR4—and a new paper shows that some 15% of the observed rise comes not from global warming, but instead from global dewatering.

In light of all this, rather than raising its projections of sea level rise, perhaps the IPCC ought to consider lowering them once again (as it did from its from its First Assessment Report to its Second, and from its Second to its Third). [Read more →]

“The fraudulence of … ‘goals’ for emission reductions, ‘offsets’ that render even iron-clad goals almost meaningless, an ineffectual ‘cap-and-trade’ mechanism must be exposed. We must rebel against such politics-as-usual.”

- James Hansen, “Never-Give-Up Fighting Spirit,” November 30, 2009

“The truth is, the climate course set by [the] Waxman-Markey [cap-and-trade bill] is a disaster course. It is an exceedingly inefficient way to get a small reduction of emissions. It is less than worthless….”

-James Hansen, “Strategies to Address Global Warming,” July 13, 2009.

The case for government intervention in the name of addressing man-made climate change concerns alleged market failure. But there is a second key factor in the debate over public policy activism: government failure.

The letter below, signed by 41 Left environmental groups , is a welcome example of policy activists assessing the ‘cure’ in terms of the ‘disease’. And it is a reminder that cap-and-trade on the federal level–long championed by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and such corporations as Enron (Ken Lay) and Duke Energy (James Rogers, a Lay protoge)–is dead from both sides of the political spectrum.

The California protest brings to mind the trenchant criticism of federal cap-and-trade by James Hansen. “Washington appears intent on choosing a [cap-and-trade] path defined by corporate greed,” Hansen wrote last year. “Unless the public gets engaged, the present Administration may jam down the public’s throat just such an approach, which, it can be shown, is not a solution at all.”

Hansen added in the same article:

“Cap-and-trade’s complexity provides a breeding ground for special interests…. [T]ry reading the Waxman-Markey 2,000-page bill to figure out who would get the money! Why do those special interests deserve it anyhow?”

- James Hansen, “The People vs. Cap-and-Tax,” paper delivered to the Chairperson of the Carbon Trading Summit, New York City, January 12, 2010. [Read more →]

“In any case there is an irony: environmental policy in the name of countering the human influence on macro climate is creating a substantial human influence on micro climate. If the natural climate is optimal, as some but not all ecologists believe, then industrial wind turbines add to the problem of man versus nature.”

I have long heard of micro-climates, isolated areas that have slightly different weather patterns than the surrounding larger area. I best remember hearing of the micro-climate of Northern California’s Napa Valley, a micro-climate that makes the area so good for growing grapes.

For the last several years, Somnath Baidya Roy has been pushing the concept that wind farms can affect the weather. While at the department of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University, Roy said:

“Large wind farms can significantly affect local meteorology.” He studied these massive machines and believes wind farms can actually impact our weather because wind turns the blades of the turbine around a rotor, which helps generate electricity the blades create a lot of turbulence in the wake.”

Roy also said at that time:

“It’s something like the wake from the propeller of a boat. Now this added turbulences mixes air up and down and creates a warming and drying effect near the ground.” He says the affects can be felt for miles and could have an impact on air conditioning costs and more money may have to be spent on irrigation of nearby crops.”

Wind farms tend to impact the weather more at night, which is when the wind is usually stronger and the most energy is generated.

WHAT THEY FOUND: Large groups of power-generating windmills could have a small influence on a region’s climate. All large wind turbines disrupt natural airflow to extract energy from wind. During the day, the effects from the disturbed airflow are negligible, since natural turbulence mixes the lower layers of the atmosphere. But the researchers found that in the predawn hours, when the atmosphere is less turbulent, a large windmill array could influence the local climate, raising temperatures by about 2 degrees Celsius (about 4 Fahrenheit) for several hours. The rotating blades could also redirect high-speed winds down to the Earth’s surface, boosting evaporation of soil moisture.

“Wind Farms Impacting Weather: Environmental Engineers Detect Turbines’ Turbulence Effects” Science Daily, 2005 October 1.

Roy is now atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne and is continuing his research, but with some different findings. A study “Impacts of wind farms on surface air temperatures,” published in late 2010 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, written by Roy and Justin J. Traiteur now shows: [Read more →]

The first six months of 2011 are now in the books. Heat waves are currently in the headlines, but how does the national average temperature compare to other years and ‘normal’? And what does the first half of the year portend for the year as a whole? 

The indication is that 2011 will mark the continued return of U.S. national temperatures to conditions much closer to the 20th century mean, down from the unusually elevated temperatures that characterized the 1998–2010 period.

If this proves to be the case, it strongly suggests that the unusually warm decade from 1998–2007, was just that–unusual–and does not best represent the expected trend or the climate state of the U.S. for the next several decades to come.

Background

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center has compiled a data set representing the annual average temperature for the contiguous United States which dates back to 1895.

Figure 1 shows that history, from the beginning through 1997. Over that time, there was really not much worth writing home about—there were signs of inter-decadal variability, but nothing that seemed to scream “dangerous anthropogenic global warming!” The overall upward trend was being driven more by cool conditions in the early decades of the record, rather than warm conditions at the end of the record. [Read more →]