"...though man has only a short memory, nature has none."
Admiral S. E. Morrison, historian (1959)

This article reviews some of the extraordinarily complex issues related to global warming. The charts in this article are from an abridged compilation of a talk given February 5, 2002 by Sallie Baliunas, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Dr. Baliunas is also Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, past contributing editor to World Climate Report, senior scientist and chair of the Science Advisory Board at the George C. Marshall Institute, and is further one of the world's authorities on solar variability and magnetohydrodynamic phenomena of our sun and other sun-like stars, precisely the issues of 'global warming'.

During the past thirty years, concern over environmental issues has become very wide-spread. Americans have been in the forefront in the scientific definition of environmental problems and in shaping public policy to deal with these problems. The conspicuous successes include the banning of DDT and its 'sister' compounds, the reduction of automobile hydrocarbon pollutants, the ban on fluorohydrocarbon refrigerants, the cleanup of rivers, lakes and streams in the U.S., 'Superfund' cleanup of industrial sites, restoration of wetlands, shoreline preservation programs, and many other successes. Much more remains to be done, however an 'ethic of conservation' has begun to take hold in the U.S. and some other countries.

The burning of fossil fuels in quantity always has the potential to produce environmental change. Because of widespread industrialization from the human use of coal, oil and natural gas there is currently intense international debate over the global impacts of these activities under the rubric: 'global warming.' As hydrocarbon fuels produce more than 80 percent of the world's energy, these carbon dioxide-emitting fuels are now being blamed for 'global warming'. Let us examine in layman's terms both the scientific evidence and the social policy issues surrounding 'global warming'.

Global warming and cooling is normal, a natural phenomenon. During just the most recent 1.8 mil. years[1], a period geologists call the Pleistocene, the earth has had four dramatic cold periods characterized by glaciation and sheet ice as far south as Italy in Europe and the central Mississippi Valley in North America. These periods of cooling and glacial activity alternated with periods of warmth. The last ice age ended a mere 12,000 years ago, if it in fact ended and does not shift toward a 'fifth' glacial period.

Direct observation of global warming is in its infancy ' only about 40 years of observational data exist, therefore computer models are used to forecast future warming trends from increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in the air. What has been established is that about 80 percent of the total carbon dioxide created from human activity has been emitted since 1940. With respect to warming, one credible forecast scenario is the estimate series of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Based on the expected growth in fossil fuel use, their simulation predicts a one-degree Celsius increase over the next fifty years. In a classical case of the public policy cart being placed before the scientific horse, the Kyoto Protocol (1997), calls for a five percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from 1990 levels to reduce increases in temperature to 0.94 degrees Celsius to avert further warming.

This model creates an estimate of 'Averted Global Warming' of an insignificant 0.06 degrees Celsius (Chart 1). The jagged line forecasts the variability of increasing temperatures through 2050. Why is the impact of Kyoto so insignificant? Because it is contemplated that the U.S. alone would have to reduce its projected 2012 energy use by about 25 percent[2], while at the same time India, Mexico, and increasingly China are exempt from any reduction. China will in a few years become the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide. We will even omit in this discussion that the U.S. would pay an economic cost of between $100 billion and $400 billion (that's B, for billion!) per year to achieve these marginal reductions in temperature increases, let alone whether such were possible ' or desirable.

Before we rush into an assumption of the desirability of reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, let's understand the place of carbon dioxide in nature. In some of the shrill between advocates of one or another 'global warming' position, we sometimes treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant. While carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas produced by the burning of fossil fuels, carbon dioxide is vital to life here on earth. It is the 'fuel' from which plants create their food and using sunlight, convert CO2 to oxygen and water; gaining energy to sustain their life and ours! Plant scientists have observed that increased carbon dioxide is responsible for a 10-20 percent increase in crop growth over the past two decades. Therefore, let us not assume that carbon dioxide increases are necessarily harmful to the environment. Worse, let us not assume that the burning of fossil fuels that have brought the earth wealth, warmth and food should be given up prior to understanding whether 'global warming' is beneficial, deleterious, or neutral.

'Global warming' is an exceptionally complex issue. Here's what science knows about warming trends in the atmosphere. Collectively, all gases in our atmosphere contribute to warming. We can call this the greenhouse effect. The major greenhouse effect is not only beneficial; it is necessary to earthly forms of life. Water vapor and clouds are the major 'greenhouse gas' however we have limited understanding of their effect on potential 'global warming'[3]. Another function of greenhouse gases (including primarily carbon dioxide and methane) is to absorb infrared radiation and prevent the escape of energy (heat) that would otherwise dissipate into space. The earth's surface temperature should, according to theory, rise as a result of increasing carbon dioxide. Lastly, as a result of humans burning fossil fuels over the past few thousand years, the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere has and is increasing.

To enter the debate over 'global warming' we might ask the key question: if carbon dioxide emissions create warming, what climatic changes have already occurred through the addition of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions? In other words, if we wish to forecast climatic change in temperature, we must have explanations that can reliably explain past temperature change. Also, do rising surface temperatures mean the same thing as rising atmospheric temperatures? Here is one of the complex issues.

There is evidence that during the twentieth-century the global average temperature has risen 0.5 degrees Celsius. We might expect this if fossil fuel burning is associated with "global warming". We would then want to find that temperatures had increased sharply toward the end of the century because of the hugely increased carbon dioxide loading during recent decades. Actually, the pattern indicates otherwise; showing three distinct temperature trends: a strong warming trend of 0.5 degree Celsius from the late 19th-century, peaking around 1940, a cooling trend from 1940 through the 1970's, and a weak warming trend through the present (Chart 2). Two surface temperature profiles are shown [Cambridge Research Unit, the solid line, and NASA-Goddard, the broken line]; both confirm the three distinct phases. That carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased hugely since 1940 cannot be doubted; but that coincident with this increase after 1940 temperatures dropped for forty years, is strong contrary evidence that surface temperatures change both upwards and downwards, irrespective of dramatically increasing carbon dioxide emissions.

If we examine more closely global temperature changes since 1975, not from the surface but rather from the lower troposphere (approximately 5,000 feet to 28,000 feet elevation), we find that dire predictions of future warming are not supported by the data. Simulations on which the Kyoto Accord would be based predict absolutely that detectable surface warming would occur in the atmosphere because of increased carbon dioxide concentrations. In fact, sondes, weather balloon instrument packages (in wide use since WW II) and NASA's newer microwave sonde units aboard satellites fail to confirm observable rises in temperature. These facts are even more devastating to the simulations of global warming because earth surface temperatures affect only a fifth of the earth, whereas these atmospheric measurements cover the entire globe (Chart 3). The chart shows that global temperature changes in the atmosphere do occur [e.g. the strong El Nino pulse of 1997 and 1998]. However, taken at face value the linear trend indicates a rise of only 0.04-degree Celsius per decade!

An alternative position of the "global warmists" is that sulphur dioxide and other human-created aerosols cool the atmosphere and thus mask the real warming trend. This position also fails scientific scrutiny, because the Southern Hemisphere, which shows no warming trend whatever, is relatively free of aerosols.

Another series of data from radiosonde measurements isolates such warming events as the 1976-77 Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a natural periodic shift (ocurring approximately every 22 years) of tropospheric temperatures known as the Great Pacific Climate Shift. This periodic oscillation has such significance that global average temperatures are affected (Chart 4). The chart illustrates the seasonal average temperature anomaly sampled worldwide. A linear trend across the data series would show a warming of 0.09 degree Celsius per decade. However, the trends measured before and after the Great Pacific Climate Shift (the horizontal lines in the chart) indicate no evidence of significant human-generated warming. When the computer simulations alleging "global warming" are compared with all the recent actual temperature data, the simulations overestimate to some degree warming at the surface and seriously exaggerate warming in the lower troposphere.

Among the natural factors influencing earth's climate are changes in our solar system's principal heat source, the sun. Sunspots indicate high levels of solar activity. These researches are in their infancy, however, earth's twentieth-century temperature changes strongly correlate with the sun's energy output (Chart 5). Science doesn't yet know how the sun's changing magnetic, particle or energy outputs affect earth's climate, however, magnetic activity as sun spot activity has been recorded for hundreds of years. A very low magnetism period during the 17th-century, called the Maunder Minimum, coincides with the coldest century of the last millenium. It can also be seen that we have recently experienced very high levels of activity that may explain some warming trend. What's important is to observe that solar activity changes are dramatic, that they probably coincide with earthly temperature changes and that this change is corroborated by a wide variety other evidence, pollen cores, glacier expansion and decline, tree ring growth patterns, lake and sea sediments, etc.

Finally, Chart 6 indicates the intuitive conclusion observed. When sun spot changes and cycles, including the Hale Polarity Cycle (the broken line in the Chart), are plotted together with Northern Hemisphere land temperatures (as a "proxy" for global temperature) because we have no global data much prior to 1940, they show remarkable congruence.

A cautious conclusion can be drawn from the above. First, no catastrophic man-made global warming effects can be found in existing scientific evidence. This is good news, not bad news. Last, could greenhouse gas buildup turn out to be a "threat" to our environment? Of course. But it is apparent that we need take no drastic measures unless and until we have both better science to indicate the problems, and that the science applied support solutions that are safe and cost-effective; free of "unintended consequences." If it were true that Kyoto were not implemented, it is sheer speculation that environmental catastrophe lurks around the corner. In fact, there appear to be no demonstrable benefits from implementing Kyoto.

NOTES:
[1] There is considerable scientific disagreement among the various disciplines regarding the "age" of the Pleistocene (the geological period charterized by alternating glacial and warm periods). For convenience, I have modified my original "guess" to 1.8 mil. years as the accepted General Agreement of the U.S. Geological Service. The difficulty is defining the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary and how long before the first glacial phase was the earth in periglaciation (near glaciation)? Some would have the Pleistocene begin 2.5 mil., or even 4 mil. years ago. The views of earth scientists often disagree with rock mechanics, who often disagree with paleontologists or mammalogists. There is widespread agreement that the Pleistocene ends with the Younger Dryas phase, 11,550 BP (before present).

[2] As a practical matter it is highly unlikely that the U.S. could achieve such dramatic reductions. There are few options that do not include more carbon dioxide generation. Obviously, nuclear power could make up a substantial amount of our energy generation, especially if we were seriously engaged in thermonuclear technology, but it won't and we aren't. Not a single nuclear power plant has been built in the U.S. in 20 years. Fantasists choose to believe too strongly in the solar power options (including wind and direct solar power). These are "boutique" energy sources, somewhat important locally, but they produce collectively proportionately tiny amounts of energy, usually intermittently. This truth absolutely does not mean that we should not continue to develop all alternative energy technologies, however.
The major solar resource, hydroelectric power, produces diminishing returns as the convenient river resources have already been used. Hydraulic levels and the competing uses of water for irrigation, recreation and habitat conservation, can be added to the extreme costs and long building times of dams. Direct wind power, or direct solar power is even more limited, and has vast and uncertain additional environmental consequences. Appropriate sites for both tend not to be near population centers where energy is consumed. Therefore, in addition to the plants themselves, an enormous infrastructure of expensive distribution lines is required, each with its own environmental impacts. As an example, a conventional 1,000-megawatt coal or natural gas plant that occupies ten acres would require in substitution perhaps 400 square miles for a "solar array" farm, and about 100 square miles for a "wind farm" of 2,000 turbines. Clearly none of these are viable "non-greenhouse" energy options that can be widely employed.

[3] Even the measurement of near-earth temperatures is dramatically affected by, for instance, unique geologic events; even sea ice. In 1883 an Indonesian volcano, Krakatoa, exploded with such force that fine ash circled the earth for years. As a result temperatures dropped so much in 1884-85 that most agricultural crops failed worldwide. Otherwise, a gigantic "calving" of Antarctic ice in March 2002, larger than 2,500 square miles (more than ten times the size of Whidbey Island) and weighing hundreds of billions of tons, will dramatically change surface temperatures orders of magnitude more than dozens of years of accumulating carbon dioxide.

Regnar Kearton is a former environmental scientist and civil engineer with almost 30 years field experience in the U. S. and some twenty other nations. Dr. Kearton is author or principal investigator of more than 500 technical studies and publications on population ecology, mineral and mining studies, environmental baseline studies, impact reports, and pollution remediation methods and solutions. For the past twenty years, he has been a Whidbey Island businessman, with a strong continuing interest in conservation, alternative energy, and the wise use of natural resources.

Copyright 2002 by Regton Publications. All rights reserved