Carbon Emissions Don't Cause Global Warming

By David Evans. David is a mathematician, a computer and electrical engineer and is head of Science Speak. David is also a former believer in man-made warming who converted to skeptic. The summary below is an introduction to a larger paper that can be read here (PDF)

Our scientific understanding of global warming has gone through three stages:

1. 1985 - 2003. Old ice core data led us strongly suspect that CO2 causes global warming.

2. 2003 - 2007. New ice core data eliminated previous reason for suspecting CO2. No evidence to suspect or exonerate CO2.

3. From Aug 2007: Know for sure that greenhouse is not causing global warming. CO2 no longer a suspect.

The paper discusses how the ice core changes, missing greenhouse signature in the real data and the recent waning of the warming all suggest that carbon emissions are not behind the changes we have experienced in recent decades.

The IPCC 2007 report (the latest and greatest from the IPCC) is based on all scientific literature up to mid 2006. The Bali Conference is the bureaucratic response to that report. Too bad that the data has changed since then!

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It's the Sun, Stupid

When the international global warming alarm-ocracy gathers for its annual convention on the balmy island of Bali next week, is there any chance that the delegates will look up at the big yellow ball in the sky and ask, "Could it be the Sun, stupid?" New research suggests that would be a great question for them to consider. A recent study from the Journal of Geophysical Research (November 2007) reports that the sun may have contributed 50 percent or more of the global warming thought to have occurred since 1900.

Researchers from Duke University and the U.S. Army Research Office report that climate appears to be insensitive to solar variation if you accept the global temperature trend for the past 1,000 years as represented by the so-called "hockey stick" graph - which claims to show essentially unchanging temperatures between from 1000 to 1900 and then a sharp uptick from 1900 to the present.

But the hockey stick-graph has been relegated to the ash heap of global warming history. Even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) no longer mentions the graph in its reports. The researchers instead used a temperature reconstruction developed by Stockholm University researcher Ander Moberg and others that shows more variation in pre-industrial temperatures. Using Moberg's reconstruction, the researchers found that "the climate is very sensitive to solar changes and a significant fraction of the global warming that occurred during the last century should be solar induced." The researchers conclude that the current large-scale computer models - which, by the way, don't work as they don't even accurately reproduce historical temperature trends - could be significantly improved by adding sun-climate coupling mechanisms. Unfortunately, the reconsideration of the climate models isn't on the agenda at Bali.

Another interesting bit of data comes by way of the Solar Science blog, which on Nov. 15 spotlighted a letter in the Green County Daily World (Indiana) that starts out, "Each morning I turn on my computer and check to see how the sun is doing. Lately I am greeted with the message `The sun is blank - no sunspots.'" The letter goes on to state that, "We are at the verge of the next sunspot cycle, solar cycle 24. How intense will this cycle be? Why is this question important? Because the sun is a major force controlling natural climate change on Earth." "For the past few months, the actual sunspot numbers have been below [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's] lower predicted threshold, approaching zero," according to the letter, leading some to conclude that we may be headed into another "solar minimum" period. The solar minimum, known as the Maunder Minimum, corresponds to the temperature depths of the Little Ice Age, a period of global cooling lasting from the 14th century to the 19th century.

As you can see from this graph of solar activity since the mid-18th century, low sunspot activity matches up nicely with well-known Little Ice Age climatic events like George Washington's Christmas-night 1776 crossing of the ice-strewn Delaware River and Napoleon Bonaparte's retreat from Moscow in the horrifically-cold winter of 1812-1813. The letter writer goes on to mention that not too long ago the Mississippi River froze solid above St. Louis, permitting westward wagon trains to cross in the winter and that you can still see old two-story houses in Wisconsin with second floor doors that allowed inhabitants to exit their homes in the middle of winter when snow depths reached 8-feet and more. If sunspot activity continues to be so markedly low, then we should prepare for the possibility of a significant global cooling trend that could reduce agricultural yields and bring on the sort of food shortages that occurred during the Little Ice Age.

There's also a new study out this week claiming that the expansion of above-ground tree vegetation in Europe has absorbed 126 million tons of carbon, equivalent to 11 percent of the region's carbon emissions. While this seems like a positive development - at least for those bent on removing carbon from the atmosphere in order to reduce global temperature - it may actually backfire in terms of preventing global warming.

As reported in this column last April, forests in northern regions actually contribute to global warming through the albedo effect. Researchers estimated that this effect may contribute as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit to regional temperatures. So while expanding European forests may take more carbon out of the atmosphere - a dubious proposition for reducing global warming - the forests will also be absorbing more sunlight producing a net effect of warmer temperatures.

Finally, let's not forget about last year's experimental validation of the sun's impact on cloud cover. That research indicated that climatic impact of sun-influenced cloud cover during the 20th century could be as much as seven times greater than the alleged effect of 200 years worth of manmade carbon dioxide. So while the global warming crowd parties in Bali amid its plotting and planning to subjugate western economies to global government based on a dubious hypothesis about trace levels of invisible manmade gases acting as some sort of atmospheric thermostat, the sun will be there shining down on their folly. Would it be too much to ask for someone to look upwards and see the light?

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Terminating Warming? A Look at California

Many manly men around our country were undoubtedly thrilled to see super-hero Arnold Schwarzenegger become the leader of one of the largest and most powerful states in the nation, and we all knew that the Terminator would tackle problems in new and authoritative ways. However, the manly men have been a bit surprised that Governor Schwarzenegger has become such an outspoken leader in the fight against emission of carbon dioxide. Taking on a naturally-occurring molecule exhaled every minute by 150 pound weaklings seems a bit too soft for one of the physically strongest men to ever live.

The manly man governor recently attended, for the second year in a row, the Los Angeles Auto Show showcasing 1,000 of the newest vehicles from 47 of the world's automobile manufacturers. Governor Schwarzenegger spent his time praising the hybrids and other fuel efficient vehicles, and seemed in love with environmentally-friendly cars and trucks. Among the quotes from the event, he boldly stated "It is fantastic to see that the world's automakers are developing the technology to help us meet our goals in California. These cars come in every size and shape and they prove that we can give consumers the choices they want and still protect the environment."

Superhero Arnold also said "Imagine what we can accomplish if we improve efficiency and put more alternatives on the road, whether it is biofuels, electric cars, hydrogen or hybrids. This will also help our families with fuel prices because it's all about supply and demand. By providing more alternatives, we can drive down oil prices from the $100 a barrel everyone is expecting."

This is another in a long line of his "accomplishments"; in April 2004, the Governor signed an executive order creating a public and private partnership to build the Hydrogen Highway in California by 2010. Last year, the Governor signed the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 that according to his official website is "California's landmark bill that established a first-in-the-world comprehensive program of regulatory and market mechanisms to achieve real, quantifiable, cost-effective reductions of greenhouse gases. The law will reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020 and to 80 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2050."

Good luck, because of California's massive and growing economy, the state is the 12th largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world despite arguably leading the nation in energy efficiency standards and taking a lead role in protecting its environment. Targeting an 80% reduction below 1990 levels should be as easy as reducing California's fiscal budget by 80% by 2050; nothing personal to the manly man, but we are a bit skeptical on this one.

If you want more information on global warming and California, literally 1,000s of websites are now devoted to the topic. You will find no end of claims that ongoing warming is reducing the snow pack of the Sierra, and producing ominous increasing trends in sea level, heat wave days, dry years, heat-related deaths, electrical demand, ozone formation, wildfires (popular this year), species extinctions, and on and on.

With so much focus on California's fight against global warming, we were drawn to a very interesting article in a recent issue of Climate Research. Scientists from California State University, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories, and the University of Utah examined temperature trends from 1950 to 2000 for hundreds of stations in Governor Schwarzenegger's California. They calculated the trend in the mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures, and their results are really not all that surprising.

As seen in Figure 1 below, California seems to have warmed at a rate of 0.13 of a degree C per decade over the past half century. But no Ph.D. in urban climate is required to immediately see that many rural locations are barely warming, not warming, or even cooling, while the heavily urbanized stations in the Bay Area and Southern California are warming at a significant rate. LaDochy et al. showed that the "urban" stations warmed at a rate of 0.20 of a degree C per decade while the "non-urban" stations warmed only 0.08 of a degree C per decade. Furthermore, they state that "Large urban sites showed rates over twice those for the state, for the mean maximum temperatures, and over 5 times the state's mean rate for the minimum temperatures." The research team concludes that "Some of the largest temperature increases occur in the vicinity of urban centers, particularly for minimum temperatures. Few rural stations show significant increases in minimum or maximum temperatures."

We have covered this topic time and time again, and many of the greenhouse advocates absolutely dismiss the obvious implications of this research. Many websites claim that California is warming at an alarming rate, and depending on how one defines "alarming," there could be validity to the claim. However, LaDochy et al. show that the warming is strangely confined to the growing urban areas, and they find little to no warming in the rural stations.

Heaven forbid, but 41% of the stations had no significant warming and 6% actually had cooling. Despite the undisputed buildup of greenhouse gases from 1950 to 2000, almost half of the stations in California showed no significant warming!

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A Catholic view of climate alarmism

End-of-the-world alarmism has been a perpetual feature of human existence for as long as we have recorded history. Generally, it occurs within a religious framework: Whether it is Apocalypse mania, or a fear that any moment now Ragnarok is going to erupt in earnest, lavish claims of total world destruction have always furnished the necessary motivation for extremist agendas.

The new craze about global warming ought not to surprise us. Christ warned us, in Matthew 24 and Mark 13, that we would hear rumors of war, that there will be famines and earthquakes, that false prophets would arise and lead people astray, and so forth. And what does he say that we are to do?

First, "see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet." Scripture's repeated admonition to "be not afraid" - the very admonition with which Pope John Paul II ushered in his papacy - is reiterated. Christ belabors this point several times over the course of the Gospels, encouraging us not to worry, reminding us that there are innumerable things in heaven and earth that we do not have it in our power to affect, and reassuring us that God has it all in hand.

This does not mean that we should never take action to prevent evil, or should sit back and wait for God to do something. It does mean that we should not panic, or become needlessly anxious, or jump to rash conclusions, which may cause more harm than good.

At the moment, scientific consensus suggests that the climate of the world is changing, and that human activities are having an impact on the amount and kind of change that we are seeing. This means that, as Benedict XVI said in a letter to the patriarch of Constantinople, "Preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for the entire human family."

It is immoral to overlook these issues because they happen to be inconvenient. On the other hand, it is foolish and imprudent to dedicate ourselves to quixotic schemes that do more to salve our consciences than to change the impact of our lifestyle on the world, and it is gravely immoral to overlook the needs and rights of human beings in favor of "saving the planet."

Consider, for example, the environmental alarmism in the 1960s that said that DDT was poisoning bird populations - a supposition about which the scientific community had yet to come to a genuine consensus. Exaggerated propaganda about a "Silent Spring" devoid of birds led to an ill-considered ban on DDT as a means of controlling malarial mosquito populations in tropical countries.

Over the ensuing years, cases of malaria in Africa and the Indian subcontinent rose substantially, causing millions of preventable deaths before finally, almost 40 years later, the scientific community decided that DDT wasn't as pernicious as originally feared.

Fear and uncertainty are a recipe for bad decisions. Good solutions require accurate, relatively complete data, and they require thoughtful, long-term, holistic planning. Alarmists claim that we don't have time - that we have to do something drastic, and we have to do it now or the planet is going to die. The result is that both time and money get wasted on projects that have little impact or even that have a negative impact overall.

The practice of pushing ethanol-based fuels is a good example: These fuels must be moved by trucks because they corrode pipelines. The cars that burn the fuel may have a moderately reduced "carbon footprint," but the cost, in carbon dioxide exhaled by transport trucks, more than offsets the gain.

Problems like this are foolish, but they are not cause for moral concern. If ill-conceived environmentalism was the only risk, we could let the alarmists go on tilting at windmills and wait for the responsible scientists and statesmen to come up with better solutions. After all, ad hoc environmentalism is unlikely to do any serious damage to the planet or to society.

Unfortunately, the climate change alarmists are, predictably, allied with the population control advocates. The sloppy thinking on this matter is absolutely typical: If human beings are radically increasing their carbon emissions with every passing year, and the human population is growing to levels never before seen in history, then the easiest way to reduce carbon output is to eliminate large numbers of human beings. "Population limitation should," according to the British-based Optimum Population Trust, "be seen as the most cost-effective carbon offsetting strategy available to individuals and nations."

In other words, once we have realized that a human being is not an exciting new creation, a person who will share in the trials and joys of earthly life, and enjoy the chance to join the heavenly hosts in the life of the world to come; that, on the contrary, a human being is nothing more than a pesky producer of unwanted carbon dioxide, we can get down to the real business of cleaning up this planet.

Most environmentalists (though, distressingly, not all) don't think that this should actually lead to the direct extermination of human populations, but they do think that it should lead to an increase in pressures on Third World governments to impose contraception, sterilization and abortion on their citizens.

A familiar story. In many ways, it is the story of the 20th century. The excuses have varied: neo-Malthusian prophecies of massive global food shortages, claims that population growth is bad for developing economies, predictions of rampant disease spread in concentrated populations, or even utter absurdities like "population growth leads to the spread of communism" or "Muslim terrorism is caused by overpopulation."

Serious global and local problems have been consistently met with the asinine reasoning that since people cause problems, more people will cause more problems, and the best broad-band solution to the ills of humanity is to stop having humans.

One hardly needs to belabor the consequences. Population controllers have arranged forced sterilizations in Third World countries, the strings tied to U.N. aid packages often have IUDs at the other end, influential population control advocates have been consistent in their support for China's one-child policy, and in the first world, children are routinely taught that it is morally responsible to kill their unborn children in order to avoid burdening an "already overburdened" planet.

The result is not responsible environmentalism, nor is it the salvation of earth's ecology. Rather, the modern population control alarmists, like the prophets of Moloch or the Aztec priests of Tlaloc, demand that human children be sacrificed in order to prevent storms, floods and disease.

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Let the Bali Eurospin Begin

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas gave a press conference to claim victory where there is none, which message was picked up by the home-grown press and doubtless to be recycled at the upcoming talks in Bali, and reminding us more than any other issue "climate change" statements out of Europe require parsing. To wit, pulled from the EUObserver (ellipses in original):

"`Our emissions are currently 2 percent below [1990] levels (.) while our economy has grown by more than 35 percent over the same period."

The commissioner also said that `it is almost certain' that Europe will meet its goal of cutting its carbon dioxide emissions by 8 percent by 2012 - a target agreed and shared under the Kyoto protocol by 15 EU member states in the late 1990s."

Reader, beware. Europe has quietly swapped out one "we" for another, such that the "we" Dimas refers to now is the EU-27, a whole `nother kettle of fish. This does not reflect the performance of "Europe" according to Kyoto, which is the EU-15, or "Old Europe".* The remaining States only afford such rhetoric by bringing to the table an emissions inventory well below their 1990 baseline, due to economic collapse, an artifact of political history unrelated to the Kyoto agenda.

This is not pedantic picking of nits, but revelation of a rhetorical ploy meant to assist political pressure against, well, us. Instead, it is significant because Europe as Kyoto recognizes it cannot ride the post-1990 economic collapse to a claim of "emission reductions, while growing the economy!" Even in the EU-27, emissions are actually well above where they were when the economic growth to which he refers began, in the late 1990s.

It is also a breathtaking statement to claim not that Europe will meet its Kyoto promise - which allows for the purchase of offsets for their emissions overage - but to assert that it will cut emissions by the promised amount. In truth, the most optimistic (that is, Brussels') projection of EU performance has them leveling emissions off at 1990 levels, which means they would buy the entirety of their "reduction". Others aren't quite so rosy. Still, that's fine if that's the game we agree to play. But drop the breast-beating about having "reduced emissions" by 8% through the courageous act of paying the Chinese to ramp down their HFC production.

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