I Told You So

Climate scientists are beginning to behave like scientists … and are now looking at other factors that contribute to global warming and global cooling (aka, climate change).  Now, volcano emissions are suspected in the contribution to the 15-year hiatus in global warming … see: Wattsupwiththat Blog.  This is not just progress; it is the scales falling from the eyes of climate researchers. This should have happened years ago as we were being led by the nose into believing Al Gore’s global-warming manifesto.  Here are two important quotes in this article from real climate researchers:

“This is the most comprehensive observational evaluation of the role of volcanic activity on climate in the early part of the 21st century,” says co-author Susan Solomon, the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Science at MIT. “We assess the contributions of volcanoes on temperatures in the troposphere — the lowest layer of the atmosphere — and find they’ve certainly played some role in keeping the Earth cooler. There are many components of the Earth’s climate system that can increase or decrease the temperature of the globe. For example, while greenhouse gases cause warming, some types of small particles, known as aerosols, cause cooling. When volcanoes erupt explosively enough, they enhance these aerosols — a phenomenon referred to as “volcanic forcing.”

and:

Alan Robock, a professor of environmental sciences at Rutgers University and a leading expert on the impacts of volcanic eruptions on climate, says these findings are an important part of the larger climate picture. “This paper reminds us that there are multiple causes of climate change, both natural and anthropogenic, and that we need to consider all of them when interpreting past climate and predicting future climate.”

Both emphases I have added ... as this is the point I have been making for many years.  (Apparently as often stated, there is not really a scientific consensus on carbon dioxide being the bete noire of global warming ) Way back in 2006 I said the following in one of my blogs:

[T]he world has gone through many natural warming and cooling cycles. These cycles have apparently been caused by one or more of the following events (roughly in order of potential effect): 

1) Changes (wiggles) in the amount of the orthogonal offset in the Earth’s rotational axis relative to the plane of its orbit around the sun. (This offset is what causes our world’s seasons.)
2) The periodic cycle of sunspot activity (and other solar dynamics) causing a change in the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth.
3) Enormous emissions of Earth’s gasses and particulates naturally and during cataclysmic geological events like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.
4) The Earth’s on-going global chemistry which creates and destroys massive amounts of inorganic compounds.
5) The periodic small perturbations of the Earth in its orbit … closer to and further from the sun
6) The evolving structure of the Earth’s upper atmosphere (magnetic, chemical, and electrical) which filter out or permit in the ethers of space.
7) Shifts in the Earth’s ocean currents caused by intercontinental plate tectonic movements and other poorly-understood factors.
8) The effect of the Earth’s biomass and mankind on the composition and proportions of our atmospheric gasses (carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, etc. -- e.g., early plants converted enormous amount of naturally occurring carbon dioxide into oxygen … which then enabled the evolution of animals … who then reciprocated by converting oxygen back into carbon dioxide). By the by, methane has 20 times the atmospheric warming effect as carbon dioxide … and is mainly produced by nature, not by man.

The notion of a change (caused by the burning of fossil fuels) in the relatively small proportion of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (from 310 to 370 parts per million during the last 40 years) is responsible for our current warming cycle seems to me to be the essence of human species egocentricity. If one truly comprehends the scope of the above-outlined possible reasons for global warming, then one has to conclude that politics must the driving force behind our current environmental hysteria. I think that any “scientist’ who lays global warming totally at the feet of the increase in carbon dioxide must first quantify the effects (positive and/or negative) of all the above possible causes. 

To see this quote in its original situ, please go to: Junkier Science.

I hate to gloat, but in this one case I will … I told you so.

Afterward: Global-warming zealots are trying to gag Charles Krauthammer. They want the Washington Post to stop publishing his columns because of his open-minded attitude toward global-warming "science" ... see: Fox News Story. Since I am also exhibiting an equivalent skepticism with apparent impunity, should I be insulted?

Global Smarming

You would think that this issue of global warming would finally go away.  But no … too many people have too much invested in both ill-gotten money and prestige to let this happen.  I thought the clear frauds that arose out of East Anglia University would put the final nails in the coffin of these climate charlatans.  But, like in The Night of the Living Dead, we are still being threatened by the zombie zealots … and their putrid pundit, Al Gore.

Yes, our climate does change and we have dust bowls and tornadoes and hurricanes, but finding carbon dioxide to be the culprit is only because it is, conveniently, the only possible reason for global warming that man has the (very) remotest chance of controlling.  Ocean currents, the Earth’s tilt and polar wiggle, the thermodynamics of our sun, any small changes in the Earth’s orbit, global levels of volcanism, etc, etc. are all beyond man’s control … so, again conveniently, they cannot possibly be the culprits.  That is they couldn’t be the culprits if, in fact we were warming up … which, it seems, we haven’t been since 1999 (see: Daily Mail Story and Powerline Piece -- Tip o' the Hat to Bill Miller for this last one).

Every time we have slightly warmer weather, the global-warming Clicken-Little's go running around clucking about the end of the world.  When things are abnormally cold (like now), these same alarmists can be found huddled under their electric blankets … counting their pelf from our last warm season.  Wake up you Sierra-Club smarmies!  Climate change is normal and we are just as likely to be getting colder as warmer.

Afterward:  Here is a very interesting story on "global warming": The Australian

Balderdash!

In the local Scott Brown/Elizabeth Warren debate last night (Massachusetts Senate race), Scott said that he thought that global warming was real, but that he wasn't sure to what degree that mankind was responsible.  Can this be?  Yes, I suppose that Scott's justifiably timid premise might be based upon the recent shrinking of the Arctic polar ice cap ... see: AP Story). However, what is less frequently mentioned by the cult of greenies is that the ice cap in Antarctica is growing. In fact it recently reach its largest size in 33 years! (See: Forbes Story).

Now I am sure that the Northern Hemisphere produces more carbon dioxide than the Southern Hemisphere (particularly since China is building about one coal-powered power plant per week), but I am also sure that the Southern Hemisphere produces more carbon dioxide than in past years.  Yet, its ice cap is growing!  Ergo, this means that the dynamics of global warming and global cooling is far more complicated than our covey of animated climate scientists are willing to admit.

I have previously stated in this blog and my Junkier Science blog that our earth's climate is clearly affected by numerous things, minute changes in the Earth's tilt, alterations in solar radiation levels, the dynamics of ocean current shifts, increased/decreased levels of atmospheric particulates from things like volcanoes, atmosphere chemistry changes (including CO2), and maybe even our Solar System's shifting position in the Milky Way.  Of all these independent variables, the only one that man might have any control over is CO2 levels.  To me, this seems to be too convenient a solution to our angst over what may (or may not) be happening to our climate.  One time a surgeon told me that, since he was good a wielding a hammer, every health problem looked to him like a nail.

I sincerely think that far too many scientists see CO2 as a climate-change "nail" because it is the only dial that mankind might twist to fix things.  Therefore, data is fudged and simulation models are "adjusted" so as to prove this singular point.  If these simulation models were multivariate instead of single variant, I might be more easily convinced.  But they are not, and, until they are ... BALDERDASH!