Global Warming
Global warming is the increase in the average measured temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since last 2 decades, and its projected continuation1. The word “Global Warming” in this essay implies “human-caused Global warming”. My claim in this article is that, the prediction of climate change solely on the basis of increase in anthropogenic Green House Gases, is flawed. Sun is the only supplier of energy to the earth and it is quintessential to include solar activity in predicting average temperature change over the course of the years.
The table below presents the green house gases most of the alarmist are concerned about and the percentage human contribution:
So, out of all the CO2 present in the nature, only 3% is contributed by humans. It is probable that human might be responsible for global warming. But the negligible human contribution to the increase in amount of major green house gases suggest that the probability is very less, if there is any.
Other theories that explain present trend of temperature rise and the change in climate in the past:
Willie Wei-Hock Soon, author of “The Maunder minimum and the variable sun-earth connection”, an astrophysicist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is known for his views that most global warming is caused by solar variation. In his testimony before US senate on July 29, 2003, he concluded: “We seem to be moving dangerously away from science-by-evidence to science-by-public appeals; and that is bad not only for science but also for the public who will be left ignorant if alarmism in the popular media is not corrected and dispelled.”
The reason behind his skepticism of global warming is that the present trend of temperature is not unprecedented. There was a widespread Medieval Warm Period between approximately 800 and 1300 A.D. This Medieval Warm Period was followed by a widespread colder period, called the Little Ice Age, which lasted from approximately 1300 to 1900 A.D. There is no evidence from each of the individual climate proxies to suggest that higher temperatures occurred in the 20th century than in the Medieval Warm Period. Nor is there any evidence to suggest that either the rate of increase or the duration of warming during the 20th century have been greater than in the Medieval Warm Period.
His explanation of this climate cycle is based on sunspots, which are the dark spots on sun observable from Earth. The sunspots are at lower temperature (lower energy). So the part of the sun excluding sunspot, will be at higher temperature than it would have been if there were no sunspots. Higher energy implies higher temperature and higher temperature part would radiate the energy, it won’t wait for colder part to mingle with its energy and make the temperature homogeneous. Besides, nature of sunspots has not been understood properly, but it is thought that they are maintained against the higher temperature surrounding due to the magnetic effect of the sun. The discussion above implies that fewer sunspots should co-relate to the cooler sun (less intense). The Maunder Minimum is the name given to the period roughly from 1645 to 1715, when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of that time. The Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle — and coldest part — of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America, were subjected to bitterly cold winters. Whether there is any connection between low sunspot activity and cold winters is the subject of ongoing debate but the correlation between sunspots and change in temperature of earth is too strong to be neglected.
The graph below presents the number of sunspots in the Y-axis and the year in the X-axis. We can see in the graph that number of sunspots observed during 1645-1700 A.D. were very low.
The graph above is taken from “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" authored by Arthur B. Robinson , Noah E. Robinson and Willie Soon.2
Another graph from same source as noted above shows solar activity, temperature change and increase in hydrocarbon use since 1880 A.D.:
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and temperature change since 1940. The records of atmospheric CO2 levels since 1940 show a continuing increase but during this period global temperature decreased until 1975, and have increased since then. So where is the co-relation between increase in CO2 and increase in temperature? If we look at the same graph, the temperature variation strongly co-relates with solar activity.
Low level cloud theory is the other theory that might explain the climate change. Our galaxy is full of high energy protons and ions called Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs). GCRs’ are the produce of exploding stars, also called supernovas within our galaxy. If these particles approach Earth, they can penetrate deep inside the atmosphere. They are responsible for most of the atmospheric ionization in Earth. The sun, when it is magnetically active, can deflect these GCR’s from the solar system. But when the sun is not magnetically active, GCR can enter into the earth’s atmosphere and the high energy particles of these rays ionize the gases there. The ionized small particles collect water to form low-level clouds. These clouds, in turn, scatter incoming light, causing a cooling effect. Some scientists claim that it is a decrease in cosmic rays entering the Earth (magnetically active sun) that has decreased the amount of low-level clouds, causing the current phase of warming. Change in magnetic property of the sun is not a recently discovered phenomenon. The Sun is known to reverse its magnetic polarity every 11 years.
(The research of Nigel Marsh, Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen showed the relation between GCR and cloud data, http://personals.galaxyinternet.net/tunga/vs.pdf)
Variations in warming rate: The computer models of greenhouse effect-induced temperature increase predict that the warming will be at its greatest for a given location in the troposphere and at its lowest near the surface of the earth. But the current satellite and weather balloon data do not support this model, and instead show that the surface warming rate is greater than or equal to the rate in the lower troposphere.
Relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and temperature change: The carbon dioxide levels increase or decrease as a result of temperatures increasing or decreasing rather than temperatures following carbon dioxide levels, because as the global climate cools, the Earth's oceans absorb carbon dioxide, and as the climate warms, the oceans release carbon dioxide. The graph below plots the solubility of CO2 and O2 versus temperature. And from the graph we can say that amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is very sensitive to the change in temperature.
Influence of water vapor on climate change. Water vapor makes up 95% of all greenhouse gases and has the largest impact on the planet's temperature. But the effects of clouds cannot be accurately simulated by scientists attempting to predict future weather patterns and their effects on global warming. Global warming model, therefore, makes crude assumptions about the major contributor of the “green house effect”.
There have been very vocal campaigns to make scientists and popular media concerned about the other possible explanation to the change in climate besides green house gases. Some of those campaigns are Oregon Petition (signed by more than 30,000 scientists), 1992 Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming, and the Heidelberg Declaration.
The passionate supporter of “Global Warming” is the IPCC. IPCC is the short form for intergovernmental panel on climate change established by United Nations two organizations namely World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). It shares 2007’s Nobel peace prize along with former US vice president Al Gore. IPCC publishes reports on global warming and advises governments to act accordingly. IPCC reports have been criticized by some scientists like Solid-state physicist Frederick Seitz, president emeritus of Rockefeller University and past president of the National Academy of Sciences (1962-1969), British scientist Keith Shine (lead author of the report, expressing his discontent over change of report substantially in peer review process).
Effect of Global warming has been exaggerated in the popular media by journalists and lawyers, the prime example of which is the, “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore, a power point presentation turned into docuganda. Martin Durkin’s “The Great Global Warming Swindle” is the nice counterpart of Al Gore’s movie.
Conclusion:
My conclusion is that the “human-caused global warming” – often called the “global warming hypothesis”, depends entirely upon computer model-generated scenarios of the future. Computer models exaggerate the effect of human contribution and neglect the solar activity. There are no empirical records that verify either these models or their flawed predictions and the dramatic change in climate in the past cannot be explained if green house gases are the important variables. Most of the alarmists do not want us to hear the other part of the science. Speaking against Global warming has become equivalent to trivializing holocaust in that scientists are attacked not only by scientists with valid scientific arguments but also by lawyers and journalists. They are portrayed as heretics in the popular media. Examples are the scientists who contributed in Martin Durkin’s movie. It has become unscientific and inhumane to talk about the over amplification of human contribution. Most of the alarmists are so much fixated in their background assumption that human beings are responsible for global warming; no matter of information is good enough to motivate them to explore the alternatives. Otherwise, why would they not look at the correlation between solar activity and temperature increase? Why would they ignore the fact that solubility of CO2 in water decreases as the temperature increases, so it is the CO2 increase that follows temperature increase, not the other way around? Science by nature is skeptic. By denying alternative explanations to the climate change, aren’t most of the alarmists trying to convert science into pseudoscience? Even if there is correlation between increase in green house gases and climate change, is the risk worth the effort? How long will we prolong the life of the Earth if we abstain from producing green house gases? There is a probability of 1 in 10,000 that a plane will crash. Will you fly?
Sources:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
- http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM600.pdf
- The politically incorrect guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism, Horne Christopher C., Regners Publishing Inc, 2007
- http://www.stsci.edu/stsci/meetings/lisa3/beckmanj.html
2 comments:
As a geologist I am very comfortable with the multiple working hypothesis - I would like someone to start examining the other climate change ideas out there.
For instance, the Danes have been on the case for a long while, studying the sun. Who would have thought the sun would be involved in warming? The first paper to read is Friis-Christensen and Lassen (Science; 1991) If you can find the entire issue in the reference library, you will see the editor’s comment referred to this paper as hitting the ball into the anthropogenic court. The causation is under scientific review, however, and while the radiation from the sun varies only in the fourth decimal place, the magnetism is awesome. The correlation with solar activity broke down when Pinatubo erupted in 1991; my tomatoes did not ripen that summer either. Is this the exception that proves the rule?
The important correlation between warming and cooling is the sunspot peak frequency, not the actual number of spots. However, we all realize correlation is not causation. Sunspot peak frequency proxies for the rise and fall of the sun’s magnetic field, which shields earth from cosmic radiation. Cosmic radiation is currently at its highest ever measured because the sun and earth’s magnetic shields are down; climate is changing. The climate celebrities, however, are linking climate and the carbon economy. Maybe not evil; just wrong.
The third ranking gas is CO2 (0.0383%), and it does not correlate well with global warming or cooling either; in fact, CO2 in the atmosphere trails warming which is clear natural evidence for its well-studied inverse solubility in water: CO2 dissolves rapidly in cold water and bubbles rapidly out of warm water. CO2 has been rising and Earth and her oceans have been warming. However, the correlation trails.
Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center has experiments scheduled for the Hadron collider to test his basement experiment where cosmic radiation force instantaneous vapour nucleation. Elevated solar flux (> 10 protons per cc) appears to cause fog in the Great Lakes and clouds too.
The hypothesis of the Danish National Space Center is as follows: quiet sun allows the geomagnetic shield to drop. Incoming galactic cosmic ray flux creates more low-level clouds, more snow, and more albedo effect as more is heat reflected resulting in a colder climate. An active sun, in contrast, has an enhanced magnetic field that induces Earth’s geomagnetic shield response. Earth has fewer low-level clouds, less rain, snow and ice, and less albedo (less heat reflected) producing a warmer climate.
That is how the bulk of climate change likely works, coupled with (modulated by) solar magnetism (sunspot peak frequency) there are cycles of global warming and cooling like waves in the ocean. When the waves are closely spaced, all the planets warm; when the waves are spaced farther apart, as they have been for this century, all the planets cool.
Many answers yield many new questions: the change in cloud cover is only a small percentage, and the ultimate cause of the solar magnetic cycle may be cyclicity in the Sun-Jupiter centre of gravity. We await more on that.
Although the post 60s warming period appears to be over, warming and attendant humidity have allowed the principal green house gas, water vapour, to kick in with more clouds, rain and snow depending on where you live to provide the negative feedback that scientists use to explain the existence of complex life on Earth for 550 million years.
We can likely kick much of the carbon economy sometime late the twenty-first century, but we must not rush to judgement for the wrong reason. The planet heats and cools naturally and our gasses are the thermostat. Nothing unusual is going on except for the Orwellian politics. In other words, it is probably not the heat; it is likely the humidity.
Demagogue - a political leader who gains power by appealing to people's emotions, instincts, and prejudices in a way that is considered manipulative and dangerous.
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