On Alleged Global Warming

This week marked the release of the UN's Panel on Climate Change's "Summary for Policy Makers," a prelude, but not actually, the "Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007." Much has already been made of, and quoted from, this non-scientists' summary's dire predictions.

For some perspective on just what the document is, is not, and does not reference, consider the following excerpts from Philip Stott's editorial in yesterday's Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Stott is professor emeritus of biogeography at the University of London, and co-editor of "Political Ecology: Science, Myth and Power" (Oxford University Press, 2000).

Herewith are some passages from his piece, the reading of in its entirety I strongly urge:

"Unfortunately, the IPCC represents science by supercommittee, as rule 10 of its procedures states: "In taking decisions, and approving, adopting and accepting reports, the Panel, its Working Groups and any Task Forces shall use all best endeavors to reach consensus." I bet Galileo would have had a rough time with that.

In this context, it is vital to remember that science progresses by skepticism and by paradigm shifts: A consensus early last century would have given us eugenics. Moreover, the IPCC does no original research, nor does it monitor climate-related data; its evidence is instead from selected secondary sources. But, above all, this supercommittee is more political than is often recognized, rule three firmly reminding delegates that: "documents should involve both peer review by experts and review by governments."

Friday's summary and "best estimates" of temperature-rise by 2100 (as compared to preindustrial times) are thus little more than a committee compromise chewed over by governments with different agendas: an average potential rise of three degrees Celsius (up from 2.5 degrees in 2001); a probable rise of between 1.8 to 4 degrees; a possible rise of between 1.1 to 6.4 degrees. So you can take your pick, also bearing in mind that there are groups outside the IPCC predicting cooling by one or two degrees Celsius. Moreover, the conclusion that climate changes seen around the world are "very likely" to have a human cause is wonderful Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass talk.

For the skeptic, however, the problem remains, as ever, water vapor and clouds. Enormous uncertainties persist with respect to the role of clouds in climate change. Moreover, models that strive to incorporate everything, from aerosols to vegetation and volcanoes to ocean currents, may look convincing, but the error range associated with each additional factor results in near-total uncertainty. Yet, there is a greater concern. Throughout the history of science, monocausal explanations that overemphasize the dominance of one factor in immensely complex processes (in this case, the human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases) have been inevitably replaced by more powerful theories.

Worryingly for the IPCC's "consensus," there is a counterparadigm, relating to the serious uncertainties of water vapor and clouds, now waiting in the wings. In the words of Dr. Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish National Space Center: "The greenhouse effect must play some role. But those who are absolutely certain that the rise in temperatures is due solely to carbon dioxide have no scientific justification. It's pure guesswork." A key piece of research in this emerging new paradigm was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A (October 2006): "Do electrons help to make the clouds?"

Using a box of air in a Copenhagen lab, physicists managed to trace the growth of clusters of molecules of the kind that build cloud condensation nuclei. These are specks of sulfuric acid on which cloud droplets form. High-energy particles driven through the laboratory ceiling by exploded stars far away in the galaxy -- cosmic rays -- liberated electrons in the air, which helped the molecular clusters to form much faster than atmospheric scientists have predicted. This process could well explain a long-touted link between cosmic rays, cloudiness and climate change.

......Cosmic rays are known to boost cloud formation -- and, in turn, reduce earth temperatures -- by creating ions that cause water droplets to condense. Calculating temperature changes at the earth's surface -- by studying oxygen isotopes trapped in rocks formed by ancient marine fossils -- scientists then compared these with variations in cosmic-ray activity, determined by looking at how cosmic rays have affected iron isotopes in meteorites. Their results suggest that temperature fluctuations are more likely to relate to cosmic-ray activity than to carbon dioxide. By contrast, they found no correlation between temperature variation and the changing patterns of CO2 in the atmosphere. But the mechanism remained far from understood -- until last October, that is, when the team in the Copenhagen lab may have discovered it.

The inconvenient truth remains that climate is the most complex, coupled, nonlinear, chaotic system known. In such a system, both "doing something" (emitting human-induced gases) and "not doing something" (not emitting) at the margins are equally unpredictable. What climate will we produce? Will it be better? And, if we get there, won't it, too, change?

This is the fatal flaw at the heart of the whole global-warming debacle. Climate change must be accepted as the norm, not as an exception, and it must be seen primarily as a political and economic issue, focusing on how best humanity can continue to adapt to constant change, hot, wet, cold or dry. The concept of achieving a "stable climate" is a dangerous oxymoron."

With this editorial as a backdrop, the recent rush by CEOs of US large-cap companies to capitulate to America's Congress on this issue looks even more mistaken than I thought in two posts I wrote recently, here and here.

Unless I am mistaken, the findings of which Mr. Stott, an Englishman, writes, came out of Denmark. Not ExxonMobil, in Houston. Nor ChevronTexaco. So, contrary to the letter from two Senators to Rex Tillerson (ExxonMobil CEO) last year, threatening coercive acts if Exxon does not stop funding 'anti-green' research, and simply admit global-warming guilt, this new, developing evidence demonstrates why the 'battle' over the question of whether there is atypical global warming occurring is far from over. After all, cosmic rays and water vapor are, arguably, not at all within the control of humans. What will the greens do about these, if they are, in fact, affecting global temperatures?

Could it be that, as Stott suggests at the end of his piece, we need to learn to adapt to a changing global climate, rather than attempt to change it ourselves?