The global warming debate rages on, and despite spending way too much of my time reading articles about it I am not convinced about either side’s conclusions. My main questions still remain: to what level is global warming or climate change occurring? are human’s contributing to it with green house gas (GHG) emissions and if so to what level? If we are contributing to it can we fix the problem preferably without devastating our economy? How dangerous will temperature increases be to our cities and population, and how soon will they occur? It appears that my much of my confusion exists because of two opposing groups themselves.
The group supporting global warming is called the consensus but seem to be made up largely of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is a large group of scientists (2500 from the IPCC alone), many of whom have been engaged in climate research for many years. They propose that man-made GHG emissions driven mostly by carbon dioxide (CO2) are heating the surface of the planet. The second group is referred to as dissenters or skeptics of global warming. They do not believer man-made GHG contributions are having any significant impact on temperature change and in some cases doubt whether it is occurring at all.
The consensus believes that from data collected from climate research, ice core analysis, and computer modeling that certain conclusions can be determined:
- Human activity has changed the composition of the lower atmosphere (troposphere). The composition has been changed through the emissions of GHG’s
- Changing the composition of the troposphere is warming the planet. Increasing GHG’s increases the amount of reflected IR heat that is absorbed in the troposphere; this in turn heats the troposphere which causes more evaporation and leads to increased amounts of water vapor. It is water vapor that has the greatest impact on temperature increase.
- Human activity driven by GHG emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide and ozone) has been making significant changes to atmospheric conditions that have been increasing over the past 100 years. These changes are now becoming evident by increasing surface temperatures, increasing water temperatures, and glacial melting
- If man-made GHG emissions from fossil fuel consumption (oil, coal, and natural gas) continue it will becoming increasingly difficult to stop or slow the heating process. Human activity has changed the climate in a few hundred years what it takes natural events 10 million years.
- Changes may occur more rapidly or become more severe. We will see the effects within our lifetimes. Disappearing glaciers and melting ice sheets at the north pole both resulting large fresh water losses, sea water levels rise flooding coastal regions, climate tier shifting i.e. the northern states will have temperature similar to the mid level states and so on.
- To slow global warming down will require decades of dramatic action. We will need to use less fossil fuel while increasing renewable energy sources. It doesn’t mean economies have to loose jobs and services but to realign them into new renewable industry.
Source: Listen to the Scientists: Global Warming & the I.P.C.C.
The consensus has determined that man-made emissions are affecting our climate. They want to continue research to better understand the problem and the behaviors (burning of fossil fuel for power, transportation, and industry use) that perpetrate the problem. They want to stop what they call the false debate. They claim the science has already been agreed upon and dissenting opinions addressed numerous times. They want to begin to look for methods to deal with the basic problem of fossil fuel consumption and get renewable fuels established. Their goal is to have policy make the economy especially the energy and transportation sectors more efficient. Finally, most have come to some form of conclusion that temperature increases probably cant be stopped at this point, we will not be going back to where we were, but it can slowed down enough to provide governments a better chance to adapt and possibly avoid the worst case scenarios such as tipping point where positive feed back effects might lead to rapid warming.
The dissenters or skeptics believe the data collected from climate research is inconclusive, ice core samples illustrate the irrelevancy of CO2’s contribution towards temperature increases, and that data and variables plugged into the sophisticated climate models are inaccurate or of little significance to predicting temperature change. They present a litany of errors found in the global warming theory and site numerous factors they believe are considerably more important causes of surface heating. Some examples Include:
- Water vapor is the most significant GHG and the primary driver of surface heating. CO2 concentrations and its atmospheric heating capabilities are insignificant by many magnitudes compared to water vapor.
- The GHG effect is a naturally occurring phenomenon that has occurred multitudes of times in our past and will occur again in the future. It is driven by the sun which goes through its own heating and cooling cycles and it is the heat from the sun that warms the ocean which in turn creates precipitation and water vapor. IR radiation or heat reflected from the surface of the Earth becomes trapped by the water vapor and this increases the troposphere’s temperature.
- Ice core readings from Vostok and EPICA Antarctica demonstrate CO2 level increases that lag temperature increases by hundreds of years and therefore could not be the contributing factor for heating.
- The oceans release and absorb between 100 – 115 giga tons of CO2 each year. That’s a variance of approximately 15 giga tons. Ocean temperatures have increased 1 degree since 1960. As the ocean warms it absorbs less CO2 which causes a potentially greater variance. Trees exhale CO2 at night when not conducting photosynthesis at a rate of 40 to 50 giga tons each year. The variance there is approximately10 giga tons of CO2. Man-made GHG emissions constitute 3 giga tons per year. Skeptics claim that man-made CO2 contributions are insignificant compared to the natural carbon cycles of the ocean or all the trees on the planet. Plus GHG’s don’t warm the oceans, the sun does.
- Trees have a greater effect than CO2 in raising temperature. The northern hemisphere has experienced increased forest growth due to fire prevention. Also boreal trees do not act as the carbon sinks the same way tropical rainforests do and actually contribute more precipitation and hence water vapor into the atmosphere. When considering surface temperature increases, the increases are from the northern half of the hemisphere. The southern half is actually cooling probably due to the ongoing thinning of the Amazon and central African rainforests.
- Some site that heat and even CO2 may actually be good. It will create a warmer climate extending the growing seasons and food production. It will also reduce severe weather pointing out the middle ages between 1000 and 1500 as a period with relatively milder storm activity
There is also growing agreement among skeptics that as future fossil fuel production begins to decrease and oil, coal, and natural gas prices increase, the market will support the introduction of new alternative energy sources. This does not need to be prematurely forced onto the country at the cost of billions of dollars and thousands of lost jobs.
There has definitely been mudslinging from both parties. Consensus believers argue that global warming or climate change has been endorsed by every national science academy including the science academies from every major industrial country. The final holdout – the American Assoc of Petroleum Geologists even revised their statement in 2007. The consensus scientists believe that there is an attempt to replace the scientific analysis conducted over that past two decades with politically motivated ideologies developed under the Bush administration and carried out today by overlapping groups of skeptical scientists, media commentators, and think tanks. The goal is an organized attempt to confuse public opinion with seemingly unrelated controversies or provide the public with an endless stream of seemingly important but irrelevant facts and questions. The real motivations are to preserve the status quo and big oil and coal profits while avoiding the economic hardships required to address the issues. They believe the actions of oil companies in their attempts to pay scientists to make dissenting comments or create / fund organizations whose main function is promoting global warming skepticism is both immoral and employs the same subversive tactics used by the tobacco companies to hide nicotine addiction. ExxonMobile alone they claim created a massively successful disinformation campaign between 1998 and 2005 where $16 million dollars was channeled to a sophisticated network of ideological organizations whose sole function was to generate uncertainty.
The Skeptics site leftist political motivations and agendas as the driving force behind the consensus, and that the concensus scientists are altering science to create the appearance of something that either doesn’t exist or is not within the power of mankind to change. The IPCC they claim does not contain 2500 senior scientists and that global warming was created to ensure a continual stream of funding and research grants. They question why the same individuals doing the research are then allowed to lead the assessment committees assigned to evaluate the research. The IPCC they warn have used intimidation and censorship to limit any dissenting scientist’s ability to speak against any part of the global warming theory. They charge that any eminent scientist who wants to get grants and needs grad students to help with research will have to say yes to CO2 as the cause for global warming if they want to see the funding. They site numerous scientists who have complained about being placed under considerable pressure to distort or with hold research data that does not support human activity as the cause for global warming. They also claim that other more accurate hypothesis are not given the same level attention and that the so called consensus is not correct at all. Septics also claim that the IPCC stands to make a fortune if carbon becomes taxed or from a cap and trade system, and this is what is really motivates their actions. Finally, they warn that if global warming is occurring we should be looking for ways to predict and adapt to changes from the natural warming cycle as they occur and not engage in measures that drain 3 – 5% of our nation’s GDP away for something that cannot be controlled.
There are at least a few things that the majority from both sides agrees on:
- The Earth is showing signs of some type of climate change
- Since 1880 average temperatures have increased1.4 degrees Fahrenheit
- The rate of warming appears to be increasing
- The northern hemisphere artic is feeling a greater effect than the world at large
- Glaciers and mountain ice are melting
- Artic ice is showing signs of thinning and in some cases disappearing
Getting back to my original question, I would like to see information that is not tainted by political ideology and funding from either the left or the right. Tainted meaning information coming from scientists that have received financial compensation or are reliant on research funding from either the fossil fuel industry and their supporters or from the IPCC and those who stand to profit from cap and trade. I also don’t want to see or hear any more information from scientists / engineers who are not directly involved in climate research. This means scientists in other fields, think tank personnel, and media spokesman’s. If there is anything I have learned from the articles I have read, it is that data can be manipulated to fit any agenda, and if the public is repetitively presented with even the most outlandish representation of the facts often enough from different sources many will come to believe it. There is certainly enough of this going on.
Could some of the scientist’s actually conducting the climate research from both sides of the spectrum come together in a forum and discuss what is actually going on? We need valid members from all sides, including the consensus, dissenting or skeptic scientists, and any neutral climate researchers to check their biases at the door and gather in the spirit of working together. This group could then go on to address the concerns of those who don’t agree that human activity is the cause of climate change. They could identify relevant data for analysis and determine what level if any the contribution of man-made GHG’s (mainly CO2) is having on the atmosphere. Then if necessary decide what measures would be required to reduce the warming affect on the planet. The conclusions could then be presented through multiple channels to the public. If action is required the conclusions could be turned over to economic and professional councils to determine best potential solutions, courses of action to take, and economic costs associated with those actions. These recommendations could then be provided to the world governments and if necessary discussed at global summits or forums. What I am definitively not talking about, is any council or entity given authority to override a country’s sovereignty or introduce coercive tactics like economic sanctions to influence a country to its will.
We are going no where with the constant back and forth bickering. It only sustains doubt and confusion and ensures that nothing meaningful will get done, which is probably the goal of some. I am not a scientist or researcher, so please provide corrections, comments, and constructive suggestions. I only ask that you refrain from pointing out that these things have already been discussed since they have yet to be resolved despite the discussion.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.htmvl
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/650000-years-of-greenhouse-gas-concentrations/
http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy
http://science.howstuffworks.com/global-warming7.htm