A Cool Look At Global Warming

If we are to test a scientific conjecture by its predictions, how damming should it be to the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) to discover that Arctic sea levels have been falling, not rising, by about 2mm per year over the last decade?

Well in fact that is exactly what has been happening if we are to believe the data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ERS-2 satellite. There is a BBC report on the findings here.

Of course against this we have to consider that the satellite measurement of sea level is extremely tricky. Also it may well be that a sea level fall in the Arctic is “just” a local phenomenon. Elsewhere sea levels may be rising – and indeed a collation of satellite measurements is thought to indicate a global rise of 3.2mm per year from 1992 to 2006.

But then the forecasts for rising sea levels are so apocalyptic they seem to leave little room for falling levels anywhere! For example, writing in Science Express (December 2006) Dr Stephen Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research is predicting a sea level rise of between 0.5 to 1.4 metres above 1990 levels by 2100.

Well it seems to me that taken overall the measured rate is lagging significantly behind this predicted rate. And in the Arctic the Gods of the sea level just don’t seem to be playing ball and would appear to be completely deaf to the AGW agenda!

The conjecture of AGW (human-caused global warming) is interesting science – but I would argue it is much more contentious than is generally supposed.

I guess most “contrarians” are driven by the idea that the AGW conjecture has been hijacked by various folks to serve some nefarious agenda: anti-capitalism, displaced post-christian guilt, anti-americanism, and so forth.

In the popular imagination the media has created a consensus where that symbol of capitalism the car is deeply implicated with the idea of “global warming”. We have to tax/cut down/ban/ the use of gas-guzzling vehicles (especially in the good ‘ole USA of course!).

How interesting then to discover that in fact according to a new report from LEAD:

The livestock sector is…responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than transport

Now when you think about it, especially in the current climate of “climate change hysteria”, that is a pretty amazing assertion. It sets a bit of a different perspective, no?

So who is LEAD? If you’re thinking it’s some conservative think-tank “funded by big oil” (the knee-jerk response to inconvenient truths for those sympathetic to Gore’s Incovenient Truth), you’d be quite wrong. LEAD (Livestock, Environment and Development LEAD Initiative) is a multi-institutional initiative of FAO formed “to promote ecologically sustainable livestock production systems”. OK, I hear you ask, who is FAO? Well they are the FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS. Now these good people are NOT contrarians and deniers (what a surprise!). In fact in the same report from LEAD we read the perfectly politically correct:

With rising temperatures, rising sea levels, melting icecaps and glaciers, shifting ocean currents and weather patterns, climate change is the most serious challenge facing the human race

But where in the current political and media debate about global warming do you see any acknowledgment that it is livestock that is a bigger problem than transport?

My little blog consists of the jottings of a global warming sceptic (skeptic/contrarian/denier – whatever).

Ironically though I reckon our household’s “carbon footprint” is pretty darn small. Certainly it’s smaller than most of my pro-global warming friends & relatives. In fact in that admittedly far-from-representative sample there seems to be a clear correlation between global warming advocacy/fanaticism/fervour and air miles expended trotting around the globe! Liberal guilt offset by liberal indulgence I guess…

For my part I love the idea of energy self-sufficiency – but as an end in itself and not to “save the planet”. And here is something I have just come across that I think is really cool.

At http://www.localcooling.com/ you can download a bit of freebie software that can control and monitor your PC’s energy use and settings. What’s fun is that it shows you the energy savings you are making in real-time translated into concrete terms such as how many trees and how many gallons of oil you have saved. Also (if you wish) your savings data can be posted back to localcooling.com where they publish the total savings being made by all participating users.

Here’s how it looks:
(Unfortunately the web servers at localcooling.com that host the application seem to struggle with demand. If all you see is white space below this then that’s because their servers are down. Perhaps their wind farm is becalmed…)

N.B. to get those stats to show in this blog I had to place the code in an HTML iframe. Unfortunately that means the link “Join The Fight” won’t work. Instead you can fight your fight by going here

Much is made of CO2 as a key driver of climate change. Yet the role of clouds is thought to be extremely important. Unfortunately the behaviour and influence of clouds is very difficult to model in computer simulations. Despite this handicap computer modelling remains a key plank in the scientific ‘evidence’ that is claimed to support the conjecture of global warming.

Low level clouds would seem to have a cooling effect on the earth’s surface. So the discovery of some key influence that could affect the amount of low level cloud would be an important development.

Two Danish scientists, Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen, had previously drawn attention to a strong correlation between the variation in the intensity of cosmic radiation penetrating the atmosphere and the amount of low-altitude clouds.

Cloud cover seems to increase when the intensity of cosmic rays grows and to decreases when the intensity declines.

The climate change orthodoxy have not been impressed with this idea however – the typical line being that there was no conceivable way in which cosmic rays could influence cloud cover.

But now there is supporting experimental evidence for the conjecture. In a paper published by the British Royal Society (Experimental Evidence for the role of Ions in Particle Nucleation under Atmospheric Conditions), Henrik Svensmark, Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen, Nigel Marsh, Martin Enghoff and Ulrik Uggerhøj show that electrons (as released in the atmosphere by cosmic rays) can act as catalysts, which significantly accelerate the formation of stable, ultra-small clusters of sulphuric acid and water molecules which are building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei. This result comes from a laboratory simulation (rather than a computer simulation).

“We were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons do their work of creating the building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei. This is a completely new result within climate science” (team leader Henrik Svensmark, Director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research within the Danish National Space Center, writing here)

During the 20th Century, the Sun’s magnetic field which shields Earth from cosmic rays has more than doubled. The result presumably is a reduction in the effect of cosmic rays. Which on these results would imply a reduction in cloud cover, and so would act to exacerbate (or generate) global warming.

This creates a problem for the climate change ‘warmers’ orthodoxy:

• increasing CO2 is thought to be a key driver in climate change
• CO2 emmissions have risen dramatically in modern times
• yet although it is generally agreed that there has been some planetary warming, why is not much greater that it is? Especially if the warming trend is already being driven forward by the cosmic ray factor

…and in the red corner we have a young ambitious British politician – Environment Secretary David Miliband:

“I think that the scientific debate has now closed on global warming, and the popular debate is closing as well” (Miliband on Sky News television).

And in the blue corner Richard Lindzen – Arthur P Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (bit of a weight mismatch eh?):

“Yes, there does appear to be warming, but the amount is hardly certain or indisputable. And the amount found does not appear that alarming. The alarm, I would suppose, comes from the notoriously inadequate climate models…for those who enthuse over the regulatory state, the possibility of regulating breathing must be like a dream come true. Under the circumstances, perhaps we should be suspicious of the dishonourable tradition of establishing the alleged truth of global warming by constant repetition, while ignoring reality” (Sunday Telegraph Oct 29 2006).

Continuing his disingenuous political posturing Miliband went on to harangue the United States as a “major emitter” like China and India that needs to get on board.

Get on board what?

Friends Of The Earth report that new Government energy figures show that under Miliband’s Labour government UK Carbon dioxide emissions rose in the first half of 2006, and are now at their highest level since Labour came to power.

And what of the European Union? No small “carbon footprint” there!

I see Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas is saying that CO2 emission plans he has received from 17 EU countries show that they are preparing to release some 15% more greenhouse gases in 2008-2012 than they did in 2005-2007.