| GLOBAL
WARMING
FACTS ABOUT GLOBAL
CLIMATE CHANGE
(also referred to sometimes as
GLOBAL WARMING)
IT IS REAL - SO IS ITS IMPACT ON
THE ENVIRONMENT AND LIFE ON EARTH
PREFACE:
Since I last set up this website, an excellent website/blog has been set
up by some of the well-known scientists (include some of those mentioned
below) to provide the real facts on global warming - or more accurately,
global climate change. I highly recommend readers check out their
website Real
Climate (http://www.realclimate.org)
because it provide more comprehensive coverage on this topic.
Last Update of Content Below : 1/1/04
There has been unnecessary controversy in the media as
to whether global warming is indeed real or not. Part of this stems from
the myths perpetrated by right-wing, anti-environmental groups and
individuals, particularly using a book published by Bjorn Lomborg,
called "The Skeptical Environmentalist". In this page, we will
feature the evidence available in the scientific community which not
only shows that global warming is real, but also that its impacts on
life on earth are real as well (and often negative).
Two bloggers whom we would like to acknowledge for
some of the references below are Kevin
Drum (Calpundit) and science writer David
Appell (Quark Soup).
We will refer to data from the following Sources/References.
I. Climate
Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, 2001.
a. Summary
for policymakers; b. Technical
summary; c. Observed
Changes in Globally Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gas Concentrations and
Radiative Forcing; d. The
Forcing Agents That Cause Climate Change
II. Global
Temperature Trends: 2002 Summation, NASA Goddard Institute for Space
Studies.
III. J. Hansen, R. Ruedy, M. Sato, M.
Imhoff, W. Lawrence, D. Easterling, T. Peterson, and T. Karl, A
closer look at United States and global surface temperature change.
J. Geophys. Res. 106 (2001) 23947.
IV. Global
Warming: Emissions, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
a. What are greenhouse gases?;
b. Global Warming Potentials;
c.
Individual; d. Recent Trends.
V. C. Parmesan, and G. Yohe, A
globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural
systems, Nature 421 (2003) 37. (sorry,
password required)
VI. T. R. Root, J. T. Price, K. R. Hall, S. H. Schneider, C.
Rosenweig, and J. A. Pounds, Fingerprints
of global warming on wild animals and plants, Nature 421
(2003)
57. (sorry, password required)
VII. Skepticism
towards the Skeptical Environmentalist, Scientific American, April
2002.
VIII. M. E. Mann, and P. D. Jones,
Global
Surface Temperatures over the Past Two Millennia, Geophysical
Research Letters 30
(2003) 1820; also see Mann
website.
IX. M. E. Mann, C. M. Ammann, R. S. Bradley, K. R. Briffa, T.
J. Crowley, M. L. Hughes, P.D. Jones, M. Oppenheimer, T. J. Osborn, J.
T. Overpeck, S. Rutherford, K. E. Trenberth, T. M. L. Wigley, On
Past Temperatures and Anomalous Late 20th Century Warmth, Eos
84 (2003) 256; Response
to Comment on 'On Past Temperatures and Anomalous Late 20th Century
Warmth', Eos 84 (2003) 473.
X. M. E. Mann, R. S. Bradley, M. K. Hughes, Note
on Paper by McIntyre and McKitrick in "ENERGY AND
ENVIRONMENT", Nov. 2003; also see here.
Ref.
#s |
Topic |
Evidence/Charts
Please click on the pictures
to enlarge them
|
Summary |
I, II
III |
Global
Temperature
Trends |
Comprehensive
T change charts up to 2001 (Ref. I a)
Temperature chart
including 2002 (Ref. II)
 |
(a) Clear
global warming trend in the
20th century, most pronounced in
the late 80s and the 90s.
(b) 1998 appears to be hottest year
on record since 1880, and 2002
second hottest.
(c) Increase in temperature in the
Northern Hemisphere in the 20th
century largest in last 1000 years
(d) Ice cover decreased and sea
levels increased measurably in the
20th century
|
| VIII
|
Global
Temperature
Trends |
|
The authors
state that
(a) They present reconstructions of
Northern and Southern Hemisphere
mean surface temperature over
the past two millennia based on
high-resolution ‘proxy’ temperature
data (which retain millennial-scale
variability). These reconstructions
indicate that late 20th century warmth
is unprecedented for at least roughly the
past two millennia for the Northern
Hemisphere. Conclusions for the
Southern Hemisphere and global mean
temperature are limited by the sparseness
of available proxy data in the
Southern Hemisphere at present.
(b) To the extent that a ‘Medieval’
interval
of moderately warmer conditions can be
defined from about AD 800–1400, any
hemispheric warmth during that interval is
dwarfed in magnitude by late 20th century
warmth.
|
| I d
IV
|
Link
between
greenhouse gas
emissions and
global warming |
Trend
in Greenhouse Gas Concentrations (Ref. I d)
Level of scientific
understanding on link between
greenhouse gases and global warming (Ref. 1 d)
|
(a)
Greenhouse gases include
carbon dioxide (CO2), methane
(CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O),
industrially generated
fluorocarbons,
etc.,
(their global warming potentials
are shown here.)
(b) There has been a steep increase
in greenhouse gas concentrations
in the 20th century. This increase
broadly correlates positively with
the global warming trend. i.e.,
there is strong evidence that
growing greenhouse gas emissions
have led to global warming.
(c) Scientific confidence in the link
between emissions of CO2, N2O,
CH4 and fluorocarbons and
temperature change is HIGH.
|
| I c |
Greenhouse
gas
origins; top gases |
CO2,
by orders of magnitude, is the most significant
greenhouse gas causing global warming (Ref. I c)
Emissions from
industrial activity
constitute the bulk of CO2 emissions (Ref. I c)
|
(a) CO2,
by orders of magnitude, is
the most significant greenhouse
gas causing global warming
(b) Emissions from industrial
activity constitute the bulk of
CO2 emissions
|
| V, VI |
Impact of
global
warming on plants
and animals |
A
large majority of species studied exhibit
behavioral changes consistent with predictions
from climate change theories
(Ref. V)
(Ref. VI)
Range
limits were found to have moved
northward/upward in the direction anticipated
due to climate change. Spring events were advanced
a few days per decade - which is what warming
would be expected to cause.
(Ref. V - see bottom of table)
(Ref. VI)
|
References
V and VI presented
quantitative studies in 2003 that are
somewhat unprecedented in scope
and extent. As Ref. V notes, "..The
test
for a globally coherent climate fingerprint
does not require that any single species
show a climate change impact with 100%
certitude. Rather, it seeks some defined
level of confidence in a climate change
signal on a global scale..."
In interpreting the findings, note as
Ref. V points out, "...Expected
phenological shifts for regions
experiencing warming trends
are for earlier spring events (for
example, migrant arrival times, peak
flight date, budburst, nesting,
egg-laying, and flowering) and for
later autumn events
(for example, leaf
fall, migrant departure times, and
hibernation)50, 51. Response
to
climate warming predicts a
preponderance of polward/upward
shifts50, 51. Dynamics at the range
boundaries are expected to be
more influenced by climate than are
dynamics within the interior of a
species range... Response to climate
warming predicts that southerly
species should outperform northerly
species at the same site50, 51..."
Key findings
(a) Range limits of
species have moved
on average 6.1 (+2.4) km per decade
northward or m per decade upward,
significantly in the direction predicted
by climate change (Ref. V)
(b) There was a mean
shift towards
earlier spring timing of 2.3 days
per decade for one data set of species
(Ref. V), and 5.1 + 0.1 days
per
decade for another set of species
(Ref. VI) - (both in the direction
expected by global warming)
(c) Around 80-81%
of the hundreds of
species studied exhibited shifts in
accordance with climate change
predictions. (Refs. V and VI)
(The remaining are not necessarily
contrary to predictions because other
factors may be implicated in some
cases).
|
| VII |
Rebuttal
to
Bjorn Lomborg |
Not only
are the studies from Refs. V and VI - which
are perhaps the most comprehensive to date -
published after Bjorn Lomborg's book came out,
a panel of leading scientists significantly rebutted
Bjorn Lomborg's book.
For a summary of the rebuttals see Scientific
American.
|
In brief,
here is a snippet at the Scientific
American website that qualitatively
summarizes the problems with
Lomborg's book:
"...Outraged
voices within the mainstream
scientific community quickly answered,
however, that Lomborg’s work was
deeply flawed. His text, they said,
misrepresented the actual positions of
environmentalists and scientists, and his
analysis was marred by invalidating errors
that include a narrow, biased
reading of the literature, an inadequate
understanding of the science, and
quotations taken out of context..."
"...The
errors described here, however, show
that in its purpose of describing the real
state of the world, the book is a failure..."
|
| IX
|
Rebuttal
to
Soon and Baliunas
|
Soon and
Baliunas challenged the work by Mann et al.
and Mann et al. issued a rebuttal showing
that the Soon and Balunas work was deeply flawed.
The original rebuttal to SB and follow-up
rebuttal
are here
and here.
Gregg
Easterbrook in The New Republic grossly
misrepresents the significance of the Soon and
Baliunas work and reports falsely on the reason
for the resignation of the Climate Research editors.
We
wrote in comments to Daniel Drezner that
Gregg Easterbrook's work is flawed - and that
Richard Muller's paper in Technology
Review (which Easterbrook cites
approvingly) is also flawed. Here is a link
to that. |
(a) The
devastating technical rebuttals are in
the links on the left. Perhaps what is
appropriate is to summarize Mann et al.'s
concluding remarks in EOS:
"...Articles
in Scientific
American and
the
Chronicle of
Higher Education have
quoted
numerous other leading
climate scientists
as indicating that SB03 misinterpreted
the paleoclimatological literature.
The controversy over the publication
of
SB03 has now led,since the publication
of M03, to the resignation of the
editor-in-chief and five other
editors at
the journal Climate
Research.
It is clear that we are not alone in
finding the work of SB03 seriously flawed."
(b)
We wrote in comments to Daniel Drezner that
Gregg Easterbrook's work is flawed - and that
Richard Muller's paper in Technology
Review is also flawed. Here is a link
to that. |
| X
|
Rebuttal
to
McIntyre and
McKitrick
|
McIntyre
and McKitrick published a paper in
"Energy and Environment" challenging the
work of Mann et al.
Mann et al. have issued a preliminary rebuttal showing
that the Soon and Balunas work was incredibly flawed.
M&M responded with their rebuttal and
Mann et al.
have stated that they will go through a formal
rebuttal process through scientific journals. |
Here is a
summary of what Mann et al. have to say
in their preliminary
rebuttal (we quote directly):
"...The
recent paper by McIntyre and McKitrick
(Energy
and Environment,
14, 751-771, 2003)
claims to be an "audit" of the analysis of
Mann, Bradley and Hughes (Nature,
392, 779-787,
1998) or "MBH98". An audit involves a careful
examination, using the same data and following
the exact procedures used in the report or study
being audited. McIntyre and McKitrick ("MM")
have done no such thing, having used neither the
data nor the procedures of MBH98. Thus, it is
entirely understandable that they do not obtain the
same result. Their effort has no bearing on the
work of MBH98, and is no way a "correction" of
that study as they claim. On the contrary, their
analysis appears seriously flawed and amounts to
a gross misrepresentation of the work of MBH98.
The standard protocol for scientific journals
receiving critical comments on a published paper
is to provide the authors being criticized
with an opportunity to review the
criticism prior to publication, and offer them the
chance to respond. Mann and colleagues were
given no such opportunity.
It seems clear that MM have made critical errors
in their analysis that have the effect of grossly
distorting the reconstruction of MBH98. Key
indicators of the original MBH98 network appear
to have been omitted for the early period 1400-1600,
with major consequences for the character of
the MM reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere
temperatures over that interval..."
M&M's webpage with
their rebuttal on 11/11 is here.
Mann et al. stated
on 11/4 that:
"Further results and details will
be made
available in a formal published response to
the MM03 paper. These will not be posted on
this website until after the paper is published
to conform to journal policy."
Additionally, David Appell has posted
comments
from Mann et al. here
which is a quick response to
charges that Mann et al. didn't make their entire data
set available.
David Appell writes
this on 11/14:
"...I
received a message from Steve McIntyre
yesterday asking if I "had any luck identifying the
159 series in question at
ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/MBH98/?
I'm not trying to be argumentative here; I really
can't identify them and I'm very knowledgeable
about this data."
No, I haven't fully identified all these series, but
then I'm a journalist not a scientist, aren't I? More
to the point, I'm not the one making any claims
about Mann et. al.'s work. McIntyre is.
It seems to me highly incumbent on McIntyre and
McKitrick, who are making serious charges in their
Energy and Environment paper and who are going
to Washington D.C. next week to amplify them, to
have their data straight before they proceed.
And it's increasingly clear that they do not
have their data straight. In fact, they clearly can't
even find all the data they need to properly do their
calculations.
Their latest missive reads like a Usenet post,
full of accusations and innuendo, and one very far
down in the thread at that. Who has the time or desire
to parse and analyze every small problem in their life,
every inconsistency they think they see? Certainly
not me--it's incumbent on them, and on the
peer-reviewers at Energy and Environment, to have
already done this before publication.
If not, it seems to me the paper should be
withdrawn until such time as they do have their data
straight.
This is looking more farcical all the time. It's
certainly
not science as I've ever seen it done--it's the science
you sit and do with your graduate advisor when you're
just getting started on your research, months before any
kind of publication.
McIntyre and McKitrick are trying to catch up on
work they should have done long-ago, way before
publication. In effect, they're trying to hold on to
their claim while at the same time trying to
figure out if they're done things right or not.
And they’re casting about accusations
in the meantime. Frankly it's getting a little
embarrassing.
So what's really going on here?
It’s a smokescreen, it appears. Throw enough chaff
into the air and hope for misdirection.
The work of Mann, Bradley, and Hughes was
peer-reviewed by and published in Nature,
one of the best scientific journals in the history
of science. The work has been verified by several
other groups, including Crowley and Lowrey, and
Briffa. (See Figure 2.21 of the IPCC’s TAR,
Vol. I.) M&M chose not to challenge MBH's work
in Nature, the traditional venue for any
challenge,
but in a journal that has already shown that it
published methodologically flawed science, by an
editor who has admitted she’s politically
biased against Kyoto, by a publisher who's
admitted he'd take industry funding if he
could be so lucky as to get it..." |
| IV
|
U.S. per capita
emissions and
trends
|
U.S.
#1 emitter of greenhouse gases
causing global warming for many years now
 |
The
United States happens to be the
number one polluter in the world and
the number one emitter of greenhouse
gases causing global warming. Let's
do something to reduce that! |
Other commentary
1/16/03
CalPundit's comments on the nature of criticisms of global warming
theory - worth reading.
Adding to CalPundit's comments on how some conservatives like to
criticize science that they don't believe in, here's what is interesting.
Many of these non-scientific naysayers
dismiss an armada of virtually all the world's scientists with a
brush of the hand. Some in the press give these naysayers more
credibility than they deserve and join in the fun. At the same time,
all-knowing naysayers spout theories about what is correct according
to God, and with no logic or anything significant to back that up -
that becomes gospel. So here is the progression of events:
1. Invoke God and
everything you say should be believed.
2. Criticize science
while braying about one's morality and everything you say must be
right.
3. Then again, when
you don't want to act on something, feel free to invoke the
"lack" of sufficient scientific evidence (as a famous
someone-we-know is apt to do).
4. When there is
a ton of scientific evidence, then say - well, it is not reliable
enough!
The point is no
amount of scientific evidence is enough to convince those who are
ideologically set into a way of thinking. If the polar ice caps melt
and thousands or millions are affected, let me assure you they will
not agree global warming caused it - even if the evidence points in
that direction. They will find some other explanation. Anything but
what the real scientific evidence says is true, because to concede
once is to step on a path where one puts in jeopardy the ability to
avoid doing the right thing in the future.
|
