Bloodthirsty Liberal

Global Warming Happens Annually

It’s true; you could look it up. I have decades of records which prove–PROVE–that the climate warms every April (June this year). The sun beats down, the air hangs heavy, oceans warm, ice melts–it’s a terrifying prospect. And it happens every year. How much longer can this go on? Pretty smart move by Al Gore to release “An Incoherent Truth” at this time of year. Trouble is, it’s not quite that simple

[This appeared in the 6/26 Wall street Journal, but is not available online without a subscription. Hence, I will quote sparingly]:

There Is No ‘Consensus’ On Global Warming

By Richard S. Lindzen

[…]

So, presumably, those scientists do not belong to the “consensus.” Yet their research is forced, whether the evidence supports it or not, into Mr. Gore’s preferred global-warming template — namely, shrill alarmism. To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of that country, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore’s movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming.

They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don’t know why….

A general characteristic of Mr. Gore’s approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. Regardless, these items are clearly not issues over which debate is ended — at least not in terms of the actual science.

A clearer claim as to what debate has ended is provided by the environmental journalist Gregg Easterbrook. He concludes that the scientific community now agrees that significant warming is occurring, and that there is clear evidence of human influences on the climate system. This is still a most peculiar claim. At some level, it has never been widely contested. Most of the climate community has agreed since 1988 that global mean temperatures have increased on the orderof one degree Fahrenheit over the past century, having risen significantly from about 1919 to 1940, decreased between 1940 and theearly ’70s, increased again until the ’90s, and remaining essentially flat since 1998.

So what, then, is one to make of this alleged debate? I would suggest at least three points.

First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists –
especially those outside the area of climate dynamics. Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a “moral” crusade.

Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition. An earlier attempt at this was accompanied by tragedy. Perhaps Marx was right. This time around we may have farce — if we’re lucky.

Mr. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT.

Even in recorded history (the whole of which is a blink of the geological eye) the earth has been significantly warmer and colder than it is now. Now is nothing but a snapshot, a borrowed moment. Our coastlines and our ice caps are not ours to keep, but come and go as Mother Nature pleases. I am all for cutting back on fossil fuels, but not because of any threat of a runaway greenhouse effect. For that, there is no evidence. Dirty air, acid rain (which is reversible, it turns out), and Saudi radicalism (which may not be) are reason enough to get green. Al Gore lost me in 2000; he’s so Y2K.