Dennis Avery, "environmental economist" and author, predicts the Earth is entering a cooling phase. He maintains that changes in solar activity are the primary cause of over 500 global warming periods during the past One Million years of Earth history. He disregards the popular concept of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions causing global warming or climate change.
For more articles by Mr. Avery, search this blog. Note that he is also the co-author, with Dr. Fred Singer of the excellent book "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years".
Peter
500 Warmings by Dennis Avery
Issue 129 - April 8, 2009 (source)http://www.acuf.org/issues/issue129/090406cul.asp
At the recent 2nd international conference of man-made warming skeptics sponsored by the Heartland Institute in New York, I predicted the earth’s warming/cooling trends for the 21st century.
I will be among splendid company such as John Coleman, founder of the weather channel, Ross McKitrick, who debunked the “hockey stick” study, physicist Willie Soon, and many other presenters with brilliant credentials. A thousand scientists, economists, and skeptics from every walk of life met to discuss the current climate indicators.
In my presentation, I used physical evidence of the more than 500 warmings in the past million years, which are found worldwide in ice cores, seabed sediments, fossil pollen and cave stalagmites. At least 700 scientists have published evidence on these solar-driven Dansgaared-Oeschger cycles. The good news is that the D-O cycle’s warmings have been getting somewhat cooler for the past 10,000 years—and there is no evidence that human-emitted CO2 will make them much warmer.
This means that the Modern Warming will probably remain cooler than the Medieval Warming (950-1300). It was 0.3 degrees warmer than the 20th century based on Craig Loehle’s study of 2000 years of temperature proxies. Willi Dansgaard’s 10,000-year reconstruction from ice cores shows the Roman Warming as warmer than the Medieval—but the two Holocene Warmings centered on 4,000 and 7,000 years ago were lots warmer than either.
The IPCC rejects the cycle evidence. They have concluded that the variability of the sun is “too small” to account for the earth’s recent warming 1976-98. They want us to sacrifice trillions of dollars to displace fossil fuels based on computers that couldn’t even predict the current cooling.
In contrast, I’ll predict a cooling planet for the next 25-30 years, because of the D-O cycle’s solar linkage. The sunspots began predicting cooling back in 2000, and it arrived a bit early, in 2007. CO2’s correlation with our temperatures over the past 150 years is only 22 percent. The correlation with sunspots is 79 percent—What does the UN think caused the 500 previous D-O cycles in the ice cores and seabed records?
There’s more. NASA, bless their hearts, reported last April that their Jason satellite confirms a cooling shift in the Pacific, our biggest heat sink. Roseanne D’Arrigo’s tree ring and rainfall proxies from around the Pacific Rim tell us that the earth’s temperatures have mirrored the Pacific’s cyclical shifts—in 25-40 year spurts—for at least the past 400 years.
I predict that after the current Pacific cooling is over, the earth will resume getting slowly and erratically warmer. But not much warmer. That’s because the D-O cycles are typically abrupt, delivering about half their temperature increase in the first few decades. Remember, we’ve had no significant net warming since 1940.
If the moderating trend in the global warming cycles persists, then we will get less than 0.5 degree C more warming over the next two centuries. If the Greenhouse Theory has any validity, we might get a bit more than 0.5 degree more warming—but not much. We tend to forget that the climate forcing power of CO2 unquestionably declines logarithmically, so the earth has probably already gotten three-fourths of the total.
As the earth cools, the U.S. will use our new natural gas surplus instead of biofuels, carbon taxes will die and the deliberate disruption of the economy will be stifled. Further warming 40 years from now will be too mild and erratic to renew public panic. Environmental assessments will become more realistic—and useful.
DENNIS T. AVERY is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years, Readers may write him at PO Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421
Sources for this Article: Craig Loehle, “A 2000-year global temperature record based on non-tree ring proxies,” Energy and Environment 18 (7-8): 1059-1058 (2007); S. Johnson, W. Dansaard, et al., “Oxygen isotope profile through the Arctic and Greenland ice sheets, Nature, 235:429-454 (1972); Roseanne D’Arrigo et al., Tree-ring Estimates of Pacific Decadal Climate Variability” Climate Dynamics: Vol 18: 219-224, (2001).
Showing posts with label solar activity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solar activity. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Monday, March 10, 2008
FACTS That Irrefutably Prove Climate Change Is Driven By Solar Activity
This is hard, measurable, factual data and observations showing variations of solar energy received by the Earth to be the over-ridingly dominant factor controlling changes in global warming and climate change. Computer climate models used to generate the myth of man-caused global warming are merely guesses based on (faulty) assumptions. Facts must outweigh guesses, always.
Peter
By: Dr. Gerhard Lobert, Physicist. Recipient of The Needle of Honor of German Aeronautics
As the glaciological and tree ring evidence shows, climate change is a natural phenomenon that has occurred many times in the past, both with the magnitude as well as with the time rate of temperature change that have occurred in the recent decades. The following facts prove that the recent global warming is not man-made but is a natural phenomenon.
1. In the temperature trace of the past 10 000 years based on glaciological evidence, the recent decades have not displayed any anomalous behavior. In two-thirds of these 10,000 years, the mean temperature was even higher than today. Shortly before the last ice age the temperature in Greenland even increased by 15 degrees C in only 20 years. All of this without any man-made CO2 emission!
2. There is no direct connection between CO2 emission and climate warming. This is shown by the fact that these two physical quantities have displayed an entirely different temporal behavior in the past 150 years. Whereas the mean global temperature varied in a quasi-periodic manner, with a mean period of 70 years, the CO2 concentration has been increasing exponentially since the 1950’s. The sea level has been rising and the glaciers have been shortening practically linearly from 1850 onwards. Neither time trace showed any reaction to the sudden increase of hydrocarbon burning from the 1950’s onwards.
3. The hypothesis that the global warming of the past decades is man-made is based on the results of calculations with climate models in which the main influence on climate is not included. The most important climate driver (besides solar luminosity) comes from the interplay of solar activity, interplanetary magnetic field strength, cosmic radiation intensity, and cloud cover of the Earth atmosphere.
Read more here.
-->
Peter
By: Dr. Gerhard Lobert, Physicist. Recipient of The Needle of Honor of German Aeronautics
As the glaciological and tree ring evidence shows, climate change is a natural phenomenon that has occurred many times in the past, both with the magnitude as well as with the time rate of temperature change that have occurred in the recent decades. The following facts prove that the recent global warming is not man-made but is a natural phenomenon.
1. In the temperature trace of the past 10 000 years based on glaciological evidence, the recent decades have not displayed any anomalous behavior. In two-thirds of these 10,000 years, the mean temperature was even higher than today. Shortly before the last ice age the temperature in Greenland even increased by 15 degrees C in only 20 years. All of this without any man-made CO2 emission!
2. There is no direct connection between CO2 emission and climate warming. This is shown by the fact that these two physical quantities have displayed an entirely different temporal behavior in the past 150 years. Whereas the mean global temperature varied in a quasi-periodic manner, with a mean period of 70 years, the CO2 concentration has been increasing exponentially since the 1950’s. The sea level has been rising and the glaciers have been shortening practically linearly from 1850 onwards. Neither time trace showed any reaction to the sudden increase of hydrocarbon burning from the 1950’s onwards.
3. The hypothesis that the global warming of the past decades is man-made is based on the results of calculations with climate models in which the main influence on climate is not included. The most important climate driver (besides solar luminosity) comes from the interplay of solar activity, interplanetary magnetic field strength, cosmic radiation intensity, and cloud cover of the Earth atmosphere.
Read more here.
-->
Friday, February 8, 2008
Measuring Solar Activity As It Relates To Climate Change
With a debate over implications on climate change at stake, solar researchers in Canada have been finding new lows in magnetic field outputs from the sun, captured here in an image from NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.Sun Stays Sluggish as Weathermen Fight for Anti-Ice Age Funding
By Joe Pappalardo
Published on: February 6, 2008
Every day, scientists hoping to see an increase in solar activity train their instruments at the sun as it crosses the sky. This is no idle academic pursuit: A lull in solar action could potentially drive the planet’s temperature down, or even prompt a mini Ice Age.
For millennia, thermonuclear forces inside the star have followed a regular rhythm, causing its magnetic field to peak and ebb, on average, every 11 years. Space weathermen are watching for telltale increases in sunspots, which would signal the start of a new cycle, predicted to have started last March and expected to peak in 2012. “When the sun’s active, it’s a little bit brighter,” explains Ken Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada’s National Research Council.
So far, Tapping reports no change in the magnetic field strength, as measured by radio telescopes. On the more positive side, last month NASA reported a small, earth-sized sunspot with a magnetic field pointing in the opposite direction from those in the previous cycle; qualities that designate the spot as a signal of a new upturn in activity. At the solar maximum, scientists expect to see between 75 and 150 such sunspots per day.
Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a “stethoscope for the sun.” Recent magnetic field readings are as low as he’s ever seen, he says, and he’s worked with the instrument for more than 25 years. If the sun remains this quiet for another a year or two, it may indicate the star has entered a downturn that, if history is any precedent, could trigger a planetary cold spell that could bring massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.
The last such solar funk corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. While there were competing causes for the climatic shift—including the Black Death’s depopulation of tree-cutting Europeans and, more substantially, increased volcanic activity spewing ash into the atmosphere—the sun’s lethargy likely had something to do with it.
Just how much influence the sun has on global temperatures has been the subject of sometimes acrimonious debate. While an upswing in solar activity may cause a warming trend, it was discounted in the mid-1990s as the sole driver of current climate change. And for anyone hoping that a solar downswing might bail us out of our current dilemma: Solar influence on climate is slight compared to the impact of man-made greenhouse gases, a National Academy of Sciences report concluded in 1995.
The planet’s climate is a messy picture, with all sorts of influences and feedback cycles that need to be taken into account. In order to build more accurate computer models, scientists need to understand both anthropogenic factors and the link between the sun and our planet, Tapping says. To help get at the sun’s influence, he and other researchers connect Earth’s temperature with historic sunspot records of sky watchers from Europe and China, as well as with carbon-14 isotopes—residue from cosmic rays delivered by the sun’s magnetic field—found in tree rings. To understand our role in climate change,” he says, “we need to understand the natural process.”
An array of of solar radio telescopes measure the sun's strength, but opportunities for funding have been few and far between lately.Funding Woes Slow New Solar Telescopes
A new generation of radio telescopes could lead to a better understanding of the sun’s behavior—of importance to space-faring countries, satellite operators, astronomers and earth scientists alike—but currently await government funding.
In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun’s emissions more rapidly. It would also provide details about the sun’s emissions by examining signals at more wavelengths than the current instrument. Canada’s space agency coordinates activity with England and the U.S., sharing data and constructing complementary telescopes. Researchers were hoping the new radio telescope would get the green light as early as last week, but are now saying that budget cuts from other countries may delay or even jeopardize the program.
“Things are all on hold due to the consequences of the huge science funding cuts in the U.S. and the U.K.,” Tapping says. “This is impacting other partner countries because of the possible need to cover financial holes. Nobody is clear yet as to how this will unfold so they are hanging onto their wallets, for the moment.”
The new Canadian telescope is an independent project but has been designed to work closely with a proposed array of 100 telescopes in the United States. Collectively called the Frequency Agile Solar Radiotelescope (FASR), the array will directly measure coronal magnetic field strengths. The system will also show the locations of electrons accelerated by solar flares and will provide images of coronal mass ejections. Assuming, of course, it is funded.
“Given fiscal realities, it has been slow in moving forward,” says Tim Bastian, principal investigator of the FASR team, which represents a consortium of American universities. “However, we recently submitted our preliminary proposal for construction to the National Science Foundation and expect to submit the full proposal in June. If all goes according to plan, the five-year construction project will be funded at the end of this fiscal year.” In which case, the first monitoring systems will be coming online in three years, giving us much-needed insight into the state of our local star.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Ethanol Fuel Not The Answer?
This is a discussion about some alternatives to gasoline for powering vehicles. It presents some useful facts to consider.
Peter
Shuck the ethanol and let solar shine
Solar power and compressed natural gas offer more-efficient energy technologies than planting, fertilizing, harvesting and refining fields of corn into fuel. Investors, take note. Congress, listen.
By Jon Markman
New research by a University of California petroleum engineering professor suggests that worldwide crude oil supplies will start to run so low over the next nine years that resource-blessed countries like Saudi Arabia will begin to hoard them for domestic use instead of exporting -- and states with large reservoirs of natural gas, like Montana, will seek ways to avoid sharing with less-advantaged neighbors like Oregon.
Attempts to forestall the political and economic damage by turning aggressively to agriculture for "renewable" transportation fuel in the form of ethanol will prove futile, according to professor Tad W. Patzek, as new calculations show that the entire surface of the Earth cannot create enough additional biomass to replace more than 10% of current fossil fuel use.
The process of sowing, fertilizing, reaping, distributing and refining corn and grasses for ethanol feedstock uses up nearly as much carbon energy as fuel farmers claim to save, and it generates so much soil degradation and toxic byproducts that widespread use will leave the Earth denuded and hostile to human life within decades, according to the professor's data.
Apocalypse now, again Patzek, in a controversial paper presented last month to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, says military battles over fast-depleting fossil fuels will combine with insufficient replacement strategies and escalating population growth soon to imperil the human race unless coordinated global efforts to curb energy demand are taken quickly. "Change will be made for us unless we make changes," he said in an interview from his UC Berkeley office this week.
Of course, we are accustomed to apocalyptic statements about the environment these days, after recent campaigns to raise awareness of ecological disasters ranging from global warming to the destruction of the rain forest. But we can't really do too much about those beyond changing a few light bulbs and recycling cereal boxes.
Yet a provably insane public policy focused on ethanol production is something we can urge politicians to halt. We can also demand that tax dollars and product development funds be spent on more long-lasting transportation fuel solutions based on solar energy and compressed natural gas. And as investors we can take positions in companies that are likely to benefit from improvements.
Let me explain the problem in the simplest terms. The main thing you need to keep in mind is that all energy on our planet comes from the sun. Through the magic of photosynthesis, shrubs and trees hundreds of millions of years ago grew plentifully worldwide in swamps. They died, were covered by layers of sediment amid tectonic change, and were then baked via geological processes into oil, gas and coal.
Fast-forward to the early 1900s, and petroleum engineers figured out how to discover, exploit and transport this buried treasure on a mass scale. Then followed the greatest explosion of industry, freedom and wealth the Earth had ever known. For 100 years, as long as supplies were abundant and cheap, all was well. Enter the sport-utility vehicle, air conditioning, two-hour commutes to work, $200 cross-country flights and skyscraper cityscapes lit up all night.
The big drain Is this sustainable? At the risk of sounding like an environmentalist crackpot, maybe not.
It's now becoming clear to scientists that half a billion years' worth of natural energy production has been drained in a century. As production has slowed amid intensified demand from emerging nations, prices have risen eightfold to allocate diminishing resource to those with the greatest ability to pay. Now scientists like Patzek say depletion has reached the phase when it will accelerate exponentially with rising needs.
Figure there's maximum another 100 years left, but after only another eight years the difficulty of acquiring it will be felt so dramatically that governments of exporters will feel compelled to stockpile instead of trade.
As importers foresee an impasse -- and observe the painful ineffectiveness of simply grabbing resources, as the United States is accused of doing in Iraq -- new sources are needed or our way of life must plainly end. The solution? That's where it gets interesting.
Sun block The U.S. agriculture lobby is incredibly powerful, and it has somehow managed to convince Congress that our next 100 years of energy should also come from the sun. Not in its most efficient route, directly transformed by the magic of electronics from solar rays into electricity via large and small grids of photovoltaic cells. But in the most inefficient way possible: From the growing of corn and then its refinement into fuel.
How inefficient is the ethanol solution? When you break the "agrofuels" system down scientifically, you can see that 99.9% of the energy in sunlight is lost in the process, with the greatest waste coming in the creation of ammonia-based fertilizer from natural gas, and in the refinery. That is, for every unit of energy that is put into creating agriculture-based fuel, almost three-quarters of it is dissipated before it actually does any work. The greatest amount of energy lost is not in the creation of ammonia-based fertilizer, as many believe, but in the refinery.
Of course, an even bigger problem is that the 6.6 billion people on Earth need all the food they can get, so every acre taken out of wheat, rice and soybean production to feed our 1 billion cars is an acre that won't feed starving kids. As Patzek notes pungently in his paper, after a lot of math to prove the point, "Our planet has zero excess biomass at her disposal."
One better solution is solar energy created at the municipal level by massive photovoltaic cell facilities, at the street level by home-based grids and at the transportation level at lots where electric vehicles' batteries can be charged. Photovoltaic cells lose only about 80% of the sun's energy to dissipation, making them at least 100 times more efficient than ethanol after the fuel cost of growing and refining the biomass feedstack is accounted for.
The sun doesn't have its own lobby or a voting bloc in the presidential primaries, so research and funding has lagged. U.S. and European industrial giants General Electric (GE, news, msgs) and Siemens (SMAWF, news, msgs) are working hard at this solution, as are many intriguing U.S. and Chinese small and midsize companies such as Suntech Power (STP, news, msgs), First Solar (FSLR, news, msgs), Trina Solar (TSL, news, msgs) and MEMC Electronic Materials (WFR, news, msgs).
For transportation, most energy experts agree that compressed natural gas, or CNG, is an ideal long-term choice. It is not only much more plentiful in North America than oil -- negating the need to depend on unstable regimes in Nigeria, Venezuela and Russia -- but also many times more efficient. CNG only loses 5% of its power in the transportation and refinement process, and has two other benefits: Its emissions are much less toxic than gasoline or diesel, and when a CNG tank is hit in a crash it is much less likely to explode than a gasoline tank.
As I wrote back in August, many countries are depending on CNG trucks for their large truck, taxi and bus fleets, so this is not some pie-in-the-sky idea. What's lacking in the United States is a distribution network and convenient filling stations -- though you can actually install equipment at home to fill a CNG car or truck from your current heating gas line.
A pilot project in California, moreover, may pave the way for thousands of heavy-duty trucks to be retrofitted with fuel injectors made by a Canadian company called Westport Innovations (CA:WPT, news, msgs) in conjunction with engine maker Cummins (CMI, news, msgs). The conversion kit allows Peterbilts and Kenworths to run clean-burning CNG instead of filthy diesel.
Stall on ethanolIt's been a hot year for ethanol, but has it been too hot? Two industry executives discuss the problem.
In short, there is nothing we can do about the depletion of the sun's bounty from the bowels of the Earth. But we can stop the politically cynical ethanol scam in its tracks, and try to move the debate and our own consumption toward solar and CNG. Of course, the best solution of all is to cut down on wasteful uses of energy such as long-distance commuting, and shipping off-season fruits and vegetables up from the southern hemisphere, and to encourage cities to step up mass-transit development efforts.
It's easy to just ignore the problem with our usual American bluster, but 30 years from now our grandkids are really going to wonder what the heck we were thinking.
Fine Print To learn more about Patzek, visit his Cal Berkeley Web site. Here is the paper he presented at OECD, titled "How Can We Outlive Our Way Of Life?" (.pdf). It's quite readable every for lay people and explains a lot -- so take some time to go through it. To learn more about Clean Energy Fuels, click here. To learn about Westport Innovations, read here. . . . Learn more about GE solar projects here. . . . To read more about Suntech, click here. . . . Learn about MEMC Electronic Materials here. . . . To learn about First Solar, check its Web site here. . . .
When it's available next year, I'm thinking about trading in my trusty Ducati Monster , which I use for my two-mile commute, for the Enertia electric motorcycle. There's also a hydrogen-powered motorcycle in the works called the ENV. . . . There's a sweet Mercedes-Benz, the 200 NGT, available only in Europe, that runs on CNG. Check it out here. To gas it up at home, check out the Phill by FuelMaker. . . . For more background on the ethanol craze, check out my April 5 column on the corn boom.
Peter
Shuck the ethanol and let solar shine
Solar power and compressed natural gas offer more-efficient energy technologies than planting, fertilizing, harvesting and refining fields of corn into fuel. Investors, take note. Congress, listen.
By Jon Markman
New research by a University of California petroleum engineering professor suggests that worldwide crude oil supplies will start to run so low over the next nine years that resource-blessed countries like Saudi Arabia will begin to hoard them for domestic use instead of exporting -- and states with large reservoirs of natural gas, like Montana, will seek ways to avoid sharing with less-advantaged neighbors like Oregon.
Attempts to forestall the political and economic damage by turning aggressively to agriculture for "renewable" transportation fuel in the form of ethanol will prove futile, according to professor Tad W. Patzek, as new calculations show that the entire surface of the Earth cannot create enough additional biomass to replace more than 10% of current fossil fuel use.
The process of sowing, fertilizing, reaping, distributing and refining corn and grasses for ethanol feedstock uses up nearly as much carbon energy as fuel farmers claim to save, and it generates so much soil degradation and toxic byproducts that widespread use will leave the Earth denuded and hostile to human life within decades, according to the professor's data.
Apocalypse now, again Patzek, in a controversial paper presented last month to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, says military battles over fast-depleting fossil fuels will combine with insufficient replacement strategies and escalating population growth soon to imperil the human race unless coordinated global efforts to curb energy demand are taken quickly. "Change will be made for us unless we make changes," he said in an interview from his UC Berkeley office this week.
Of course, we are accustomed to apocalyptic statements about the environment these days, after recent campaigns to raise awareness of ecological disasters ranging from global warming to the destruction of the rain forest. But we can't really do too much about those beyond changing a few light bulbs and recycling cereal boxes.
Yet a provably insane public policy focused on ethanol production is something we can urge politicians to halt. We can also demand that tax dollars and product development funds be spent on more long-lasting transportation fuel solutions based on solar energy and compressed natural gas. And as investors we can take positions in companies that are likely to benefit from improvements.
Let me explain the problem in the simplest terms. The main thing you need to keep in mind is that all energy on our planet comes from the sun. Through the magic of photosynthesis, shrubs and trees hundreds of millions of years ago grew plentifully worldwide in swamps. They died, were covered by layers of sediment amid tectonic change, and were then baked via geological processes into oil, gas and coal.
Fast-forward to the early 1900s, and petroleum engineers figured out how to discover, exploit and transport this buried treasure on a mass scale. Then followed the greatest explosion of industry, freedom and wealth the Earth had ever known. For 100 years, as long as supplies were abundant and cheap, all was well. Enter the sport-utility vehicle, air conditioning, two-hour commutes to work, $200 cross-country flights and skyscraper cityscapes lit up all night.
The big drain Is this sustainable? At the risk of sounding like an environmentalist crackpot, maybe not.
It's now becoming clear to scientists that half a billion years' worth of natural energy production has been drained in a century. As production has slowed amid intensified demand from emerging nations, prices have risen eightfold to allocate diminishing resource to those with the greatest ability to pay. Now scientists like Patzek say depletion has reached the phase when it will accelerate exponentially with rising needs.
Figure there's maximum another 100 years left, but after only another eight years the difficulty of acquiring it will be felt so dramatically that governments of exporters will feel compelled to stockpile instead of trade.
As importers foresee an impasse -- and observe the painful ineffectiveness of simply grabbing resources, as the United States is accused of doing in Iraq -- new sources are needed or our way of life must plainly end. The solution? That's where it gets interesting.
Sun block The U.S. agriculture lobby is incredibly powerful, and it has somehow managed to convince Congress that our next 100 years of energy should also come from the sun. Not in its most efficient route, directly transformed by the magic of electronics from solar rays into electricity via large and small grids of photovoltaic cells. But in the most inefficient way possible: From the growing of corn and then its refinement into fuel.
How inefficient is the ethanol solution? When you break the "agrofuels" system down scientifically, you can see that 99.9% of the energy in sunlight is lost in the process, with the greatest waste coming in the creation of ammonia-based fertilizer from natural gas, and in the refinery. That is, for every unit of energy that is put into creating agriculture-based fuel, almost three-quarters of it is dissipated before it actually does any work. The greatest amount of energy lost is not in the creation of ammonia-based fertilizer, as many believe, but in the refinery.
Of course, an even bigger problem is that the 6.6 billion people on Earth need all the food they can get, so every acre taken out of wheat, rice and soybean production to feed our 1 billion cars is an acre that won't feed starving kids. As Patzek notes pungently in his paper, after a lot of math to prove the point, "Our planet has zero excess biomass at her disposal."
One better solution is solar energy created at the municipal level by massive photovoltaic cell facilities, at the street level by home-based grids and at the transportation level at lots where electric vehicles' batteries can be charged. Photovoltaic cells lose only about 80% of the sun's energy to dissipation, making them at least 100 times more efficient than ethanol after the fuel cost of growing and refining the biomass feedstack is accounted for.
The sun doesn't have its own lobby or a voting bloc in the presidential primaries, so research and funding has lagged. U.S. and European industrial giants General Electric (GE, news, msgs) and Siemens (SMAWF, news, msgs) are working hard at this solution, as are many intriguing U.S. and Chinese small and midsize companies such as Suntech Power (STP, news, msgs), First Solar (FSLR, news, msgs), Trina Solar (TSL, news, msgs) and MEMC Electronic Materials (WFR, news, msgs).
For transportation, most energy experts agree that compressed natural gas, or CNG, is an ideal long-term choice. It is not only much more plentiful in North America than oil -- negating the need to depend on unstable regimes in Nigeria, Venezuela and Russia -- but also many times more efficient. CNG only loses 5% of its power in the transportation and refinement process, and has two other benefits: Its emissions are much less toxic than gasoline or diesel, and when a CNG tank is hit in a crash it is much less likely to explode than a gasoline tank.
As I wrote back in August, many countries are depending on CNG trucks for their large truck, taxi and bus fleets, so this is not some pie-in-the-sky idea. What's lacking in the United States is a distribution network and convenient filling stations -- though you can actually install equipment at home to fill a CNG car or truck from your current heating gas line.
A pilot project in California, moreover, may pave the way for thousands of heavy-duty trucks to be retrofitted with fuel injectors made by a Canadian company called Westport Innovations (CA:WPT, news, msgs) in conjunction with engine maker Cummins (CMI, news, msgs). The conversion kit allows Peterbilts and Kenworths to run clean-burning CNG instead of filthy diesel.
Stall on ethanolIt's been a hot year for ethanol, but has it been too hot? Two industry executives discuss the problem.
In short, there is nothing we can do about the depletion of the sun's bounty from the bowels of the Earth. But we can stop the politically cynical ethanol scam in its tracks, and try to move the debate and our own consumption toward solar and CNG. Of course, the best solution of all is to cut down on wasteful uses of energy such as long-distance commuting, and shipping off-season fruits and vegetables up from the southern hemisphere, and to encourage cities to step up mass-transit development efforts.
It's easy to just ignore the problem with our usual American bluster, but 30 years from now our grandkids are really going to wonder what the heck we were thinking.
Fine Print To learn more about Patzek, visit his Cal Berkeley Web site. Here is the paper he presented at OECD, titled "How Can We Outlive Our Way Of Life?" (.pdf). It's quite readable every for lay people and explains a lot -- so take some time to go through it. To learn more about Clean Energy Fuels, click here. To learn about Westport Innovations, read here. . . . Learn more about GE solar projects here. . . . To read more about Suntech, click here. . . . Learn about MEMC Electronic Materials here. . . . To learn about First Solar, check its Web site here. . . .
When it's available next year, I'm thinking about trading in my trusty Ducati Monster , which I use for my two-mile commute, for the Enertia electric motorcycle. There's also a hydrogen-powered motorcycle in the works called the ENV. . . . There's a sweet Mercedes-Benz, the 200 NGT, available only in Europe, that runs on CNG. Check it out here. To gas it up at home, check out the Phill by FuelMaker. . . . For more background on the ethanol craze, check out my April 5 column on the corn boom.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Solar Activity Warming Earth, Russian Scientists Say
This article comes from Russian climate scientists. Unfortunately, some of the meaning is lost in the translation from Russian to English, which is probably unavoidable. However, it is clear that these prominent Russian scientists do not think that carbon dioxide emissions are the primary control of global warming and hence climate change. They agree with a growing number of scientists from around the world that changes in solar activity are most likely responsible for past and present global climate changes.
There obviously is no "consensus" amongst scientists that man is responsible for global warming and climate change. For anyone to claim otherwise is plainly ridiculous.
Peter
from: http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20070928/81541029.html
Solar wind warming up Earth
16:56
28/ 09/ 2007
MOSCOW. (Yury Zaitsev for RIA Novosti) - Paleoclimate research shows that the chillier periods of the Earth's history have always given way to warmer times, and vice versa.
But it is not quite clear what causes this change. This is what makes predicting climate change so difficult. Although everyone agrees that the climate is changing very fast, hardly anyone can say whether it will be warmer or colder in the next 100 years. At the moment it is getting warmer. The majority attribute this change to human impact on the environment. But are they right?
Lev Zeleny, director of the Institute of Space Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences and an Academy corresponding member, believes that before making Kyoto Protocol-like decisions, we should thoroughly study the influence of all factors and receive more or less unequivocal results. In order to treat an illness, we must diagnose it first, he insists.
Yury Leonov, director of the Institute of Geology at the Russian Academy of Sciences, thinks that the human impact on nature is so small that it can be dismissed as a statistical mistake.
Until quite recently, experts primarily attributed global warming to greenhouse gas emissions, with carbon dioxide singled out as the chief culprit. But it transpires that water vapor is just as bad.
Paleoclimate studies have revealed that during the ice ages the climate became much less damp, because the North Atlantic produced little moisture. The increase in temperature in turn increased humidity, and as a result rivers became fuller and more fresh water flowed into the Arctic and the North Atlantic. This fresh water covered the ocean's surface with a thin film, thereby decreasing evaporation. Another chilly period set in, and the flow of the rivers slowed down, marking the beginning of a new cycle. This is not a linear process - the higher the average temperature, the more steam gets into the air.
"Judging by Venus, a planet, which is similar to the Earth in all respects, we can see how far this can go. The temperature on its surface is about 500° C (mostly due to a greenhouse effect). At one time, Venus did not have a layer of clouds, and this is probably when it was warmed up by the Sun, causing a greenhouse effect. What if the Sun is responsible for the warming of our climate?" queries Lev Zeleny.
"There are two channels of energy transfer from the Sun - electromagnetic and corpuscular radiation," he explains. "The bulk of it - about 1.37 kW per square meter of the Earth's surface - which equals the power of an electric kettle - comes via the electromagnetic channel. This flow of energy primarily fits into the visible and infrared range of the spectrum and its amount is virtually immune to change - it alters by no more than a few fractions of a percent. It is called the 'solar constant.' The flow of energy reaches the Earth in eight minutes and is largely absorbed by its atmosphere and surface. It has decisive influence on the shaping of our climate."
The second channel is corpuscular radiation, consisting of solar wind and space rays. Although transferring much less energy, it plays a key role in forming "space weather" - changeable conditions in space which depend on solar activity. Until recently, it was believed that "space weather" had nothing to do with ours, but that idea has been proved wrong.
"Solar wind becomes more intense when the Sun is active. It sweeps space rays out of the solar system like a broom," Zeleny points out. "This affects cloud formation, which cools off both the atmosphere and the whole planet. We know from historic records that it was quite cold in 1350-1380. The Sun was very active during this time."
Solar wind is also the main transmitter of energy for geomagnetic phenomena in the Earth's magnetosphere, which is formed as a result of the solar wind streamlining the Earth's magnetic field. If the influx of energy exceeds its dissipation, energy accumulates in the magnetosphere. If a certain level of energy is exceeded, any disturbance outside or inside the magnetosphere may release excess energy and cause a magnetic storm. But it may also have no consequences at all.
A statistical analysis of solar and geomagnetic disturbances shows a rather low correlation between them. It transpires that most solar bursts do not trigger magnetic storms. It would be interesting to know why this correlation is so low.
Nevertheless, other Sun-related phenomena have fairly regular and predictable consequences on the Earth. Of course, they exert influence on humans and other species and, to some extent, on the environment, altering atmospheric pressure and temperature. But they are not likely to contribute much to climate change. This is a global process and is the result of global causes. For the time being, we are far from understanding them fully.
"Some dangers are much less discussed today, for instance, the inversion of the Earth's magnetic field," Zeleny warns. "It is gradually changing its polarity; the poles are crawling to the equator at increasing speed. There were whole epochs in the Earth's history when the magnetic field all but disappeared. Such oscillations have taken place throughout almost its entire geological history."
Paleomagnetic data show that last time the magnetic field disappeared was several hundred thousand years ago. It is possible that the Earth will lose it again in the 21st and 22nd centuries. The "magnetic umbrella," which protects us from deadly space radiation, will disappear, exposing humankind to a heavy "rainfall" of solar particles and space rays. Our descendants will have to understand how a weaker magnetic field will affect the climate and what protection they will need.
Yury Zaitsev is an expert from the Institute of Space Studies.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
There obviously is no "consensus" amongst scientists that man is responsible for global warming and climate change. For anyone to claim otherwise is plainly ridiculous.
Peter
from: http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20070928/81541029.html
Solar wind warming up Earth
16:56
28/ 09/ 2007
MOSCOW. (Yury Zaitsev for RIA Novosti) - Paleoclimate research shows that the chillier periods of the Earth's history have always given way to warmer times, and vice versa.
But it is not quite clear what causes this change. This is what makes predicting climate change so difficult. Although everyone agrees that the climate is changing very fast, hardly anyone can say whether it will be warmer or colder in the next 100 years. At the moment it is getting warmer. The majority attribute this change to human impact on the environment. But are they right?
Lev Zeleny, director of the Institute of Space Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences and an Academy corresponding member, believes that before making Kyoto Protocol-like decisions, we should thoroughly study the influence of all factors and receive more or less unequivocal results. In order to treat an illness, we must diagnose it first, he insists.
Yury Leonov, director of the Institute of Geology at the Russian Academy of Sciences, thinks that the human impact on nature is so small that it can be dismissed as a statistical mistake.
Until quite recently, experts primarily attributed global warming to greenhouse gas emissions, with carbon dioxide singled out as the chief culprit. But it transpires that water vapor is just as bad.
Paleoclimate studies have revealed that during the ice ages the climate became much less damp, because the North Atlantic produced little moisture. The increase in temperature in turn increased humidity, and as a result rivers became fuller and more fresh water flowed into the Arctic and the North Atlantic. This fresh water covered the ocean's surface with a thin film, thereby decreasing evaporation. Another chilly period set in, and the flow of the rivers slowed down, marking the beginning of a new cycle. This is not a linear process - the higher the average temperature, the more steam gets into the air.
"Judging by Venus, a planet, which is similar to the Earth in all respects, we can see how far this can go. The temperature on its surface is about 500° C (mostly due to a greenhouse effect). At one time, Venus did not have a layer of clouds, and this is probably when it was warmed up by the Sun, causing a greenhouse effect. What if the Sun is responsible for the warming of our climate?" queries Lev Zeleny.
"There are two channels of energy transfer from the Sun - electromagnetic and corpuscular radiation," he explains. "The bulk of it - about 1.37 kW per square meter of the Earth's surface - which equals the power of an electric kettle - comes via the electromagnetic channel. This flow of energy primarily fits into the visible and infrared range of the spectrum and its amount is virtually immune to change - it alters by no more than a few fractions of a percent. It is called the 'solar constant.' The flow of energy reaches the Earth in eight minutes and is largely absorbed by its atmosphere and surface. It has decisive influence on the shaping of our climate."
The second channel is corpuscular radiation, consisting of solar wind and space rays. Although transferring much less energy, it plays a key role in forming "space weather" - changeable conditions in space which depend on solar activity. Until recently, it was believed that "space weather" had nothing to do with ours, but that idea has been proved wrong.
"Solar wind becomes more intense when the Sun is active. It sweeps space rays out of the solar system like a broom," Zeleny points out. "This affects cloud formation, which cools off both the atmosphere and the whole planet. We know from historic records that it was quite cold in 1350-1380. The Sun was very active during this time."
Solar wind is also the main transmitter of energy for geomagnetic phenomena in the Earth's magnetosphere, which is formed as a result of the solar wind streamlining the Earth's magnetic field. If the influx of energy exceeds its dissipation, energy accumulates in the magnetosphere. If a certain level of energy is exceeded, any disturbance outside or inside the magnetosphere may release excess energy and cause a magnetic storm. But it may also have no consequences at all.
A statistical analysis of solar and geomagnetic disturbances shows a rather low correlation between them. It transpires that most solar bursts do not trigger magnetic storms. It would be interesting to know why this correlation is so low.
Nevertheless, other Sun-related phenomena have fairly regular and predictable consequences on the Earth. Of course, they exert influence on humans and other species and, to some extent, on the environment, altering atmospheric pressure and temperature. But they are not likely to contribute much to climate change. This is a global process and is the result of global causes. For the time being, we are far from understanding them fully.
"Some dangers are much less discussed today, for instance, the inversion of the Earth's magnetic field," Zeleny warns. "It is gradually changing its polarity; the poles are crawling to the equator at increasing speed. There were whole epochs in the Earth's history when the magnetic field all but disappeared. Such oscillations have taken place throughout almost its entire geological history."
Paleomagnetic data show that last time the magnetic field disappeared was several hundred thousand years ago. It is possible that the Earth will lose it again in the 21st and 22nd centuries. The "magnetic umbrella," which protects us from deadly space radiation, will disappear, exposing humankind to a heavy "rainfall" of solar particles and space rays. Our descendants will have to understand how a weaker magnetic field will affect the climate and what protection they will need.
Yury Zaitsev is an expert from the Institute of Space Studies.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Limited Role of CO2, Man is Not Causing Global Warming
There is an abundance of research showing a causative link between variations in the solar energy the Earth receives and global warming and climate change. The following is one excellent example. Keep in mind that this is a news story reporting on a scientific study, quoting the scientist, so take it as it is.
Peter
From:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=069cb5b2-7d81-4a8e-825d-56e0f112aeb5&k=0
Limited role for C02
The Deniers -- Part X
Lawrence Solomon, Financial PostPublished: Friday, February 02, 2007
Astrophysicist Nir Shariv, one of Israel's top young scientists, describes the logic that led him -- and most everyone else -- to conclude that SUVs, coal plants and other things man-made cause global warming.
Step One Scientists for decades have postulated that increases in carbon dioxide and other gases could lead to a greenhouse effect.
Step Two As if on cue, the temperature rose over the course of the 20th century while greenhouse gases proliferated due to human activities.
Step Three No other mechanism explains the warming. Without another candidate, greenhouses gases necessarily became the cause.
Dr. Shariv, a prolific researcher who has made a name for himself assessing the movements of two-billion-year-old meteorites, no longer accepts this logic, or subscribes to these views. He has recanted: "Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media.
"In fact, there is much more than meets the eye."
Dr. Shariv's digging led him to the surprising discovery that there is no concrete evidence -- only speculation -- that man-made greenhouse gases cause global warming. Even research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-- the United Nations agency that heads the worldwide effort to combat global warming -- is bereft of anything here inspiring confidence. In fact, according to the IPCC's own findings, man's role is so uncertain that there is a strong possibility that we have been cooling, not warming, the Earth. Unfortunately, our tools are too crude to reveal what man's effect has been in the past, let alone predict how much warming or cooling we might cause in the future.
All we have on which to pin the blame on greenhouse gases, says Dr. Shaviv, is "incriminating circumstantial evidence," which explains why climate scientists speak in terms of finding "evidence of fingerprints." Circumstantial evidence might be a fine basis on which to justify reducing greenhouse gases, he adds, "without other 'suspects.' " However, Dr. Shaviv not only believes there are credible "other suspects," he believes that at least one provides a superior explanation for the 20th century's warming.
"Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming," he states, particularly because of the evidence that has been accumulating over the past decade of the strong relationship that cosmic- ray flux has on our atmosphere. So much evidence has by now been amassed, in fact, that "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist."
The sun's strong role indicates that greenhouse gases can't have much of an influence on the climate -- that C02 et al. don't dominate through some kind of leveraging effect that makes them especially potent drivers of climate change. The upshot of the Earth not being unduly sensitive to greenhouse gases is that neither increases nor cutbacks in future C02 emissions will matter much in terms of the climate.
Even doubling the amount of CO2 by 2100, for example, "will not dramatically increase the global temperature," Dr. Shaviv states. Put another way: "Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant."
The evidence from astrophysicists and cosmologists in laboratories around the world, on the other hand, could well be significant. In his study of meteorites, published in the prestigious journal, Physical Review Letters, Dr. Shaviv found that the meteorites that Earth collected during its passage through the arms of the Milky Way sustained up to 10% more cosmic ray damage than others. That kind of cosmic ray variation, Dr. Shaviv believes, could alter global temperatures by as much as 15% --sufficient to turn the ice ages on or off and evidence of the extent to which cosmic forces influence Earth's climate.
In another study, directly relevant to today's climate controversy, Dr. Shaviv reconstructed the temperature on Earth over the past 550 million years to find that cosmic ray flux variations explain more than two-thirds of Earth's temperature variance, making it the most dominant climate driver over geological time scales. The study also found that an upper limit can be placed on the relative role of CO2 as a climate driver, meaning that a large fraction of the global warming witnessed over the past century could not be due to CO2 -- instead it is attributable to the increased solar activity.
CO2 does play a role in climate, Dr. Shaviv believes, but a secondary role, one too small to preoccupy policymakers. Yet Dr. Shaviv also believes fossil fuels should be controlled, not because of their adverse affects on climate but to curb pollution.
"I am therefore in favour of developing cheap alternatives such as solar power, wind, and of course fusion reactors (converting Deuterium into Helium), which we should have in a few decades, but this is an altogether different issue." His conclusion: "I am quite sure Kyoto is not the right way to go."
Lawrence Solomon@nextcity.com
Peter
From:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=069cb5b2-7d81-4a8e-825d-56e0f112aeb5&k=0
Limited role for C02
The Deniers -- Part X
Lawrence Solomon, Financial PostPublished: Friday, February 02, 2007
Astrophysicist Nir Shariv, one of Israel's top young scientists, describes the logic that led him -- and most everyone else -- to conclude that SUVs, coal plants and other things man-made cause global warming.
Step One Scientists for decades have postulated that increases in carbon dioxide and other gases could lead to a greenhouse effect.
Step Two As if on cue, the temperature rose over the course of the 20th century while greenhouse gases proliferated due to human activities.
Step Three No other mechanism explains the warming. Without another candidate, greenhouses gases necessarily became the cause.
Dr. Shariv, a prolific researcher who has made a name for himself assessing the movements of two-billion-year-old meteorites, no longer accepts this logic, or subscribes to these views. He has recanted: "Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media.
"In fact, there is much more than meets the eye."
Dr. Shariv's digging led him to the surprising discovery that there is no concrete evidence -- only speculation -- that man-made greenhouse gases cause global warming. Even research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-- the United Nations agency that heads the worldwide effort to combat global warming -- is bereft of anything here inspiring confidence. In fact, according to the IPCC's own findings, man's role is so uncertain that there is a strong possibility that we have been cooling, not warming, the Earth. Unfortunately, our tools are too crude to reveal what man's effect has been in the past, let alone predict how much warming or cooling we might cause in the future.
All we have on which to pin the blame on greenhouse gases, says Dr. Shaviv, is "incriminating circumstantial evidence," which explains why climate scientists speak in terms of finding "evidence of fingerprints." Circumstantial evidence might be a fine basis on which to justify reducing greenhouse gases, he adds, "without other 'suspects.' " However, Dr. Shaviv not only believes there are credible "other suspects," he believes that at least one provides a superior explanation for the 20th century's warming.
"Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming," he states, particularly because of the evidence that has been accumulating over the past decade of the strong relationship that cosmic- ray flux has on our atmosphere. So much evidence has by now been amassed, in fact, that "it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist."
The sun's strong role indicates that greenhouse gases can't have much of an influence on the climate -- that C02 et al. don't dominate through some kind of leveraging effect that makes them especially potent drivers of climate change. The upshot of the Earth not being unduly sensitive to greenhouse gases is that neither increases nor cutbacks in future C02 emissions will matter much in terms of the climate.
Even doubling the amount of CO2 by 2100, for example, "will not dramatically increase the global temperature," Dr. Shaviv states. Put another way: "Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant."
The evidence from astrophysicists and cosmologists in laboratories around the world, on the other hand, could well be significant. In his study of meteorites, published in the prestigious journal, Physical Review Letters, Dr. Shaviv found that the meteorites that Earth collected during its passage through the arms of the Milky Way sustained up to 10% more cosmic ray damage than others. That kind of cosmic ray variation, Dr. Shaviv believes, could alter global temperatures by as much as 15% --sufficient to turn the ice ages on or off and evidence of the extent to which cosmic forces influence Earth's climate.
In another study, directly relevant to today's climate controversy, Dr. Shaviv reconstructed the temperature on Earth over the past 550 million years to find that cosmic ray flux variations explain more than two-thirds of Earth's temperature variance, making it the most dominant climate driver over geological time scales. The study also found that an upper limit can be placed on the relative role of CO2 as a climate driver, meaning that a large fraction of the global warming witnessed over the past century could not be due to CO2 -- instead it is attributable to the increased solar activity.
CO2 does play a role in climate, Dr. Shaviv believes, but a secondary role, one too small to preoccupy policymakers. Yet Dr. Shaviv also believes fossil fuels should be controlled, not because of their adverse affects on climate but to curb pollution.
"I am therefore in favour of developing cheap alternatives such as solar power, wind, and of course fusion reactors (converting Deuterium into Helium), which we should have in a few decades, but this is an altogether different issue." His conclusion: "I am quite sure Kyoto is not the right way to go."
Lawrence Solomon@nextcity.com
Monday, August 13, 2007
Solar Activity And Climate Change: A Summary
Here is another article linking variations in solar energy received by the Earth to global warming and climate change. Carbon dioxide does not seem to be a factor at all.
Peter
from: http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/ee%2018-6_alexander.pdf
SOLAR ACTIVITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE—A SUMMARY
W.J.R. Alexander1 and F. Bailey2
1Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria;
2Higher Professional Officer, Ministry of Defence, United Kingdom (retired)
Email: alexwjr@iafrica.com
1. INTRODUCTION
While there is abundant evidence worldwide of synchronous linkages between
rainfall, river flow and sunspot activity, the causal linkage was rejected in the IPCC
(2001) reports on the grounds that variations in solar radiation are too small to account
for climatic variations. This response is unsatisfactory, as it does not explain the
wealth of data, dating back for more than 100 years, that demonstrates that a causal
linkage does indeed exist.
This is the problem that the two of us were determined to resolve. We believe that
we have produced new evidence that will eventually lead to the conclusion that
variations in solar activity and not the burning of fossil fuels are the direct cause of the
observed multiyear variations in climatic responses.
The starting point was the incontestable, statistically significant (95%), 21-year
periodicity in the South African rainfall, river flow and other hydrometeorological data.
(Continued at original site)
Peter
from: http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/ee%2018-6_alexander.pdf
SOLAR ACTIVITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE—A SUMMARY
W.J.R. Alexander1 and F. Bailey2
1Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria;
2Higher Professional Officer, Ministry of Defence, United Kingdom (retired)
Email: alexwjr@iafrica.com
1. INTRODUCTION
While there is abundant evidence worldwide of synchronous linkages between
rainfall, river flow and sunspot activity, the causal linkage was rejected in the IPCC
(2001) reports on the grounds that variations in solar radiation are too small to account
for climatic variations. This response is unsatisfactory, as it does not explain the
wealth of data, dating back for more than 100 years, that demonstrates that a causal
linkage does indeed exist.
This is the problem that the two of us were determined to resolve. We believe that
we have produced new evidence that will eventually lead to the conclusion that
variations in solar activity and not the burning of fossil fuels are the direct cause of the
observed multiyear variations in climatic responses.
The starting point was the incontestable, statistically significant (95%), 21-year
periodicity in the South African rainfall, river flow and other hydrometeorological data.
(Continued at original site)
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Solar Activity and Climate Change: A Consistent Correlation
Here is another article strongly supporting the direct correlation between variations in solar activity and global warming. Before mankind began burning fossil fuels, what caused carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to increase when the climate was warming? Obviously warming causes an increase in carbon dioxide, not the other way around.
Man-caused carbon dioxide emissions can not be causing global warming.
Peter
Linkages between
solar activity, climate
predictability and water
resource development*
W J R Alexander, F Bailey, D B Bredenkamp, A van der Merwe and N Willemse
TECHNICAL PAPER
JOURNAL OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN
INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
Vol 49 No 2, June 2007, Pages 32–44, Paper 659
This study is based on the numerical analysis of the properties of routinely observed
hydrometeorological data which in South Africa alone is collected at a rate of more than
half a million station days per year, with some records approaching 100 continuous years
in length. The analysis of this data demonstrates an unequivocal synchronous linkage between these processes in South Africa and elsewhere, and solar activity. This confirms observations and reports by others in many countries during the past 150 years.
It is also shown with a high degree of assurance that there is a synchronous linkage
between the statistically significant, 21-year periodicity in these processes and the
acceleration and deceleration of the sun as it moves through galactic space. Despite a
diligent search, no evidence could be found of trends in the data that could be attributed to human activities.
It is essential that this information be accommodated in water resource development and
operation procedures in the years ahead.
(continued at: http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/alexander2707.pdf
Man-caused carbon dioxide emissions can not be causing global warming.
Peter
Linkages between
solar activity, climate
predictability and water
resource development*
W J R Alexander, F Bailey, D B Bredenkamp, A van der Merwe and N Willemse
TECHNICAL PAPER
JOURNAL OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN
INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
Vol 49 No 2, June 2007, Pages 32–44, Paper 659
This study is based on the numerical analysis of the properties of routinely observed
hydrometeorological data which in South Africa alone is collected at a rate of more than
half a million station days per year, with some records approaching 100 continuous years
in length. The analysis of this data demonstrates an unequivocal synchronous linkage between these processes in South Africa and elsewhere, and solar activity. This confirms observations and reports by others in many countries during the past 150 years.
It is also shown with a high degree of assurance that there is a synchronous linkage
between the statistically significant, 21-year periodicity in these processes and the
acceleration and deceleration of the sun as it moves through galactic space. Despite a
diligent search, no evidence could be found of trends in the data that could be attributed to human activities.
It is essential that this information be accommodated in water resource development and
operation procedures in the years ahead.
(continued at: http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/alexander2707.pdf
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
"Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil", by David Goodstein
Here is what sounds like another excellent book about our impending energy crises. This (to me) is a far greater danger than "global warming". See also the following review from Amazon.com
Peter
Out of Gas: The End of the Age Of Oil (Paperback) by David Goodstein (Author) $13.95
Price:
$11.16 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save:
$2.79 (20%)
Availability: In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
September 10, 2006
By
Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews For those of you who are just getting interested in the subject, David Goodstein's Out of Gas is the book you want to read first. I have read several books on the impending energy crisis, including:
Deffeyes, Kenneth S. Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak (2005)
Heinberg, Richard. The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (2nd Ed., 2005)
Huber, Peter W. and Mark P. Mills. The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy (2005)
Leeb, Stephen and Donna Leeb. The Oil Factor: Protect Yourself--and Profit--from the Coming Energy Crisis (2005)
Simmons, Matthew R. Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy (2005)
and I can say that Professor Goodstein's modest, short and very much to the point book is as good as, if not better than, any of those five. He introduces the subject in a clear and no nonsense way and includes a lot of background information essential to understanding how energy works and why we are about to face a crisis. For readers who are expert on the physics and technology of heat engines and entropy, this book will be a little too basic in part. But even for such experts, Goodstein is essential reading because not only does he understand the science of the energy crisis, he understands the politics. Especially edifying is the material in the Postscript.
Let me reference a few ideas: OPEC (a cartel, as Goodstein explains, patterned after the Texas Railroad Commission which was the cartel that controlled oil production in the US before our supply peaked) likes to maintain prices within a range, "partly in order not to discourage demand for oil, but also to prevent investment in alternative fuels." This we know, of course. But Goodstein adds, "The implied threat is, if you invest money to develop a competitor to oil, we will flood the market with cheap oil and wipe out your investment." (pp. 126-127) This explains in part why we have been so slow to develop alternative sources. Investors are afraid. However, as Goodstein explains, if OPEC no longer has "excess pumping capacity" to flood the market, theirs becomes an empty threat.
Notice another point here: not only are OPEC countries tempted to overstate capacity so that by OPEC rules they are allowed to pump more oil, they are induced to lie about their reserves to scare potential investors away from alternative energy sources. In fact the entire oil industry itself "has a very strong incentive to deny any looming shortage of oil." In other words, to overstate their reserves. Another reason they overstate their reserves "is to keep down the price of oil properties they would like to acquire." (p. 127) Goodstein also explains why "reserves to production" (R/P) numbers have stayed about the same for many decades and why many experts say we still have forty years of oil left, same as we have had for most of the twentieth century.
Quite simply "proven" reserves are reported as "whatever fits the current needs" of the company. (p. 128) It used to be the case that under-reporting was good since it kept the price of oil from plummeting. Now the real danger is to acknowledge that a company doesn't have much oil left. This will cause their stock price to plunge, which is what happened to the Royal Dutch Shell Group "when it was forced by outside auditors to reduce its claims of proven reserves..." (p. 129)
Goodstein's take on the various alternatives to oil, including coal, shale oil, nuclear energy, renewables, etc. is very much in concert with the opinions of other experts. We will be using more coal, dirty as it is, and more nuclear energy, and natural gas. These are the three main alternatives. Not long after we run out of oil we will run out of natural gas and then coal and then even nuclear power plants will grow cold for lack of uranium, which if used to supply energy at the current rate of consumption will be depleted in five to twenty-five years. (p. 106)
Goodstein explores wind and solar and makes it clear that in the long run--if we and civilization are going to make it to the long run--we will have to develop the technology to exploit these renewable sources. This will require a huge investment. We will need the political leadership and will to make the kind of commitment that President Kennedy made in putting a man on the moon.
Goodstein believes that solving the energy problem will require the same sort of formidable and creative technology as did the space program. He adds that "Unfortunately, our present national and international leadership is reluctant even to acknowledge that there is a problem." (p. 123) It is essential that we make the commitment to develop alternatives fuels and we make that commitment NOW because (1) we will need the oil we have left to make the thousands of petrochemical products we will continue to use; (2) we need to free ourselves from dependence on the oil producing countries; and (3) there is an outside danger that the continued burning of fossils fuels will trigger a runaway greenhouse catastrophe that could lead to sterilizing the earth as has happened on Venus.
Note well this horrific downside--far worse than any "nuclear winter"--and note too we could go past the point of no return without even realizing it, and be left with no way to stop the meltdown. Bottom line: "The challenge is enormous but the stakes are even larger. If future generations are to thrive, we who have consumed Earth's legacy of cheap oil must now provide for a world without it." (p. 131)
Peter
Out of Gas: The End of the Age Of Oil (Paperback) by David Goodstein (Author) $13.95
Price:
$11.16 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save:
$2.79 (20%)
Availability: In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
September 10, 2006
By
Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews For those of you who are just getting interested in the subject, David Goodstein's Out of Gas is the book you want to read first. I have read several books on the impending energy crisis, including:
Deffeyes, Kenneth S. Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak (2005)
Heinberg, Richard. The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (2nd Ed., 2005)
Huber, Peter W. and Mark P. Mills. The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy (2005)
Leeb, Stephen and Donna Leeb. The Oil Factor: Protect Yourself--and Profit--from the Coming Energy Crisis (2005)
Simmons, Matthew R. Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy (2005)
and I can say that Professor Goodstein's modest, short and very much to the point book is as good as, if not better than, any of those five. He introduces the subject in a clear and no nonsense way and includes a lot of background information essential to understanding how energy works and why we are about to face a crisis. For readers who are expert on the physics and technology of heat engines and entropy, this book will be a little too basic in part. But even for such experts, Goodstein is essential reading because not only does he understand the science of the energy crisis, he understands the politics. Especially edifying is the material in the Postscript.
Let me reference a few ideas: OPEC (a cartel, as Goodstein explains, patterned after the Texas Railroad Commission which was the cartel that controlled oil production in the US before our supply peaked) likes to maintain prices within a range, "partly in order not to discourage demand for oil, but also to prevent investment in alternative fuels." This we know, of course. But Goodstein adds, "The implied threat is, if you invest money to develop a competitor to oil, we will flood the market with cheap oil and wipe out your investment." (pp. 126-127) This explains in part why we have been so slow to develop alternative sources. Investors are afraid. However, as Goodstein explains, if OPEC no longer has "excess pumping capacity" to flood the market, theirs becomes an empty threat.
Notice another point here: not only are OPEC countries tempted to overstate capacity so that by OPEC rules they are allowed to pump more oil, they are induced to lie about their reserves to scare potential investors away from alternative energy sources. In fact the entire oil industry itself "has a very strong incentive to deny any looming shortage of oil." In other words, to overstate their reserves. Another reason they overstate their reserves "is to keep down the price of oil properties they would like to acquire." (p. 127) Goodstein also explains why "reserves to production" (R/P) numbers have stayed about the same for many decades and why many experts say we still have forty years of oil left, same as we have had for most of the twentieth century.
Quite simply "proven" reserves are reported as "whatever fits the current needs" of the company. (p. 128) It used to be the case that under-reporting was good since it kept the price of oil from plummeting. Now the real danger is to acknowledge that a company doesn't have much oil left. This will cause their stock price to plunge, which is what happened to the Royal Dutch Shell Group "when it was forced by outside auditors to reduce its claims of proven reserves..." (p. 129)
Goodstein's take on the various alternatives to oil, including coal, shale oil, nuclear energy, renewables, etc. is very much in concert with the opinions of other experts. We will be using more coal, dirty as it is, and more nuclear energy, and natural gas. These are the three main alternatives. Not long after we run out of oil we will run out of natural gas and then coal and then even nuclear power plants will grow cold for lack of uranium, which if used to supply energy at the current rate of consumption will be depleted in five to twenty-five years. (p. 106)
Goodstein explores wind and solar and makes it clear that in the long run--if we and civilization are going to make it to the long run--we will have to develop the technology to exploit these renewable sources. This will require a huge investment. We will need the political leadership and will to make the kind of commitment that President Kennedy made in putting a man on the moon.
Goodstein believes that solving the energy problem will require the same sort of formidable and creative technology as did the space program. He adds that "Unfortunately, our present national and international leadership is reluctant even to acknowledge that there is a problem." (p. 123) It is essential that we make the commitment to develop alternatives fuels and we make that commitment NOW because (1) we will need the oil we have left to make the thousands of petrochemical products we will continue to use; (2) we need to free ourselves from dependence on the oil producing countries; and (3) there is an outside danger that the continued burning of fossils fuels will trigger a runaway greenhouse catastrophe that could lead to sterilizing the earth as has happened on Venus.
Note well this horrific downside--far worse than any "nuclear winter"--and note too we could go past the point of no return without even realizing it, and be left with no way to stop the meltdown. Bottom line: "The challenge is enormous but the stakes are even larger. If future generations are to thrive, we who have consumed Earth's legacy of cheap oil must now provide for a world without it." (p. 131)
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Solar Energy As The Cause Of Global Warming
Here is an excerpt from the ongoing debate on MSNBC's discussion board "climate change".
Peter
wagmc
Message #806/07/07 01:42 PM
Head: the facts and evidence against CO2 being the main driver of climate are not "mine," but the findings of hundreds of peer-reviewed studies by scientists with the credentials to support their position. I'm quite certain that they are up to your "challenge."
Click to view image
The red curve illustrates the solar activity, which is generally increasing through over the past 100 years. At the same time, the Earth's average temperature as indicated by the black curve has increased by approximately 0.7C. (Reference: Friis-Christensen, E., and K. Lassen, Length of the solar cycle: An indicator of solar activity closely associated with climate, Science, 254, 698-700, 1991).
Matt: while we have only been directly observing changes in solar output for a few decades, there are thousands of years of historical records as well as geological proxies. Studies indicate that the sun has been hotter for the past 30 years than any time in the previous 10,000.
Sky: neither changes in solar brightness or CO2 can account for all of observed warming. This is why climate models use a positive feedback multiplier (an assumption that has never been identified) to achieve results consistent with observations. The Svensmark research has identified a mechanism for a positive solar feedback (greater solar output = fewer cooling clouds = additional warming), which will effectively shift some of this positive multiplier from CO2-based to solar-based. The more warming that is attributed to changes in TSI, the less that can be attributed to CO2.
The link between cloud cover changes and temperature is well documented.
Yu, F., 2002, Altitude variations of cosmic ray induced production of aerosols: Implications for global cloudiness and climate: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 107, no. A7,DOI: 10.1029/2001J000248.
J. D. Haigh, 1996, Science, 272, 981
J. W. Chamberlain, 1977, Journal of Atmospheric Science, 34, 737
Friis-Christensen, E., and Lassen, K., 1991, Length of the solar cycle: an indicator of solar activity closely associated with climate: Science, v. 254, p. 698–700.
W. B. White, J. Lean, D. R. Cayan and M. D. Dettinger, 1997, Journal of Geophysical Research, 102, 3255
B. A. Tinsley, 1997, Eos, 78, No. 33, 341
S. Baliunas and W. Soon, 1995, Astrophysical J., 450, 896.
Neff, U., Burns, S.J., Mangnini, A., Mudelsee, M., Fleitmann, D., and Matter, A., 2001, Strong coherence between solar variability and the monsoon in Oman between 9 and 6 kyr ago: Nature, v. 411, p. 290–293.
Carslaw, K.S., R.G. Harrison, and J. Kirby (2002): Cosmic Rays, Clouds, andClimate. Science, 298: 1732-7.
Houghton, J.T., et al., (2001): op. cit., Pg. 380.
Beer, J., Mende, W., and Stellmacher, R., 2000, The role of the sun in climate forcing: Quaternary Science Review, v. 19,p. 403–415.
Bond, G., Kromer, B., Beer, J., Muscheler, R., Evans, M.N., Showers, W., Hoffmann, S., Lotti-Bond, R., Hajdas, I., and Bonani, G., 2001, Persistent solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene: Science, v. 294, p. 2130–2136.
Dickenson, R.-E., 1975, Solar variability and the lower atmosphere: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, v. 56, p. 1240–1248.
Egorova, L.Y., Vovk, V.Ya., and Troshichev, O.A., 2000, Influence of variations of the cosmic rays on atmospheric pressure and temperature in the southern geomagnetic pole region: Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, v. 62, p. 955–966.
Harrison, R.G., and Aplin, K.L., 2001, Atmospheric condensation nuclei formation and high-energy radiation: Journal of Atmospheric Terrestrial Physics, v. 63, p. 1811–1819.
Hodell, D.A., Brenner, M., Curtis, J.H., and Guilderson, J.H., 2001, Solar forcing of drought frequency in the Maya lowlands: Science, v. 292, p. 1367–1370.
Marsh, N.D., and Svensmark, H., 2000, Low cloud properties influenced by cosmic rays: Physical Review Letters, v. 85, p. 5004–5007.
Ney, E.P., 1959, Cosmic radiation and weather: Nature, v. 183, p. 451–452.
Pang, K.D., and Yau, K.K., 2002, Ancient observationslink changes in Sun's brightness and Earth's climate: Eo
Peter
wagmc
Message #806/07/07 01:42 PM
Head: the facts and evidence against CO2 being the main driver of climate are not "mine," but the findings of hundreds of peer-reviewed studies by scientists with the credentials to support their position. I'm quite certain that they are up to your "challenge."
Click to view image
The red curve illustrates the solar activity, which is generally increasing through over the past 100 years. At the same time, the Earth's average temperature as indicated by the black curve has increased by approximately 0.7C. (Reference: Friis-Christensen, E., and K. Lassen, Length of the solar cycle: An indicator of solar activity closely associated with climate, Science, 254, 698-700, 1991).
Matt: while we have only been directly observing changes in solar output for a few decades, there are thousands of years of historical records as well as geological proxies. Studies indicate that the sun has been hotter for the past 30 years than any time in the previous 10,000.
Sky: neither changes in solar brightness or CO2 can account for all of observed warming. This is why climate models use a positive feedback multiplier (an assumption that has never been identified) to achieve results consistent with observations. The Svensmark research has identified a mechanism for a positive solar feedback (greater solar output = fewer cooling clouds = additional warming), which will effectively shift some of this positive multiplier from CO2-based to solar-based. The more warming that is attributed to changes in TSI, the less that can be attributed to CO2.
The link between cloud cover changes and temperature is well documented.
Yu, F., 2002, Altitude variations of cosmic ray induced production of aerosols: Implications for global cloudiness and climate: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 107, no. A7,DOI: 10.1029/2001J000248.
J. D. Haigh, 1996, Science, 272, 981
J. W. Chamberlain, 1977, Journal of Atmospheric Science, 34, 737
Friis-Christensen, E., and Lassen, K., 1991, Length of the solar cycle: an indicator of solar activity closely associated with climate: Science, v. 254, p. 698–700.
W. B. White, J. Lean, D. R. Cayan and M. D. Dettinger, 1997, Journal of Geophysical Research, 102, 3255
B. A. Tinsley, 1997, Eos, 78, No. 33, 341
S. Baliunas and W. Soon, 1995, Astrophysical J., 450, 896.
Neff, U., Burns, S.J., Mangnini, A., Mudelsee, M., Fleitmann, D., and Matter, A., 2001, Strong coherence between solar variability and the monsoon in Oman between 9 and 6 kyr ago: Nature, v. 411, p. 290–293.
Carslaw, K.S., R.G. Harrison, and J. Kirby (2002): Cosmic Rays, Clouds, andClimate. Science, 298: 1732-7.
Houghton, J.T., et al., (2001): op. cit., Pg. 380.
Beer, J., Mende, W., and Stellmacher, R., 2000, The role of the sun in climate forcing: Quaternary Science Review, v. 19,p. 403–415.
Bond, G., Kromer, B., Beer, J., Muscheler, R., Evans, M.N., Showers, W., Hoffmann, S., Lotti-Bond, R., Hajdas, I., and Bonani, G., 2001, Persistent solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene: Science, v. 294, p. 2130–2136.
Dickenson, R.-E., 1975, Solar variability and the lower atmosphere: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, v. 56, p. 1240–1248.
Egorova, L.Y., Vovk, V.Ya., and Troshichev, O.A., 2000, Influence of variations of the cosmic rays on atmospheric pressure and temperature in the southern geomagnetic pole region: Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, v. 62, p. 955–966.
Harrison, R.G., and Aplin, K.L., 2001, Atmospheric condensation nuclei formation and high-energy radiation: Journal of Atmospheric Terrestrial Physics, v. 63, p. 1811–1819.
Hodell, D.A., Brenner, M., Curtis, J.H., and Guilderson, J.H., 2001, Solar forcing of drought frequency in the Maya lowlands: Science, v. 292, p. 1367–1370.
Marsh, N.D., and Svensmark, H., 2000, Low cloud properties influenced by cosmic rays: Physical Review Letters, v. 85, p. 5004–5007.
Ney, E.P., 1959, Cosmic radiation and weather: Nature, v. 183, p. 451–452.
Pang, K.D., and Yau, K.K., 2002, Ancient observationslink changes in Sun's brightness and Earth's climate: Eo
Friday, April 27, 2007
The Geologic Record And Climate Change
This is one of the best explanations I have seen of why man-induced carbon dioxide emissions ARE NOT causing global warming and hence, climate change. I recommend printing out the entire article and carefully reading it. The key point here is the numerous climate changes in the recent past, at least 33 glacial advances and retreats (global warming and cooling periods) in the last 2 million years, long before man was around burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon dioxide. I am only posting a few highlights from the article.
Peter
From: http://www.tcsdaily.com/printArticle.aspx?ID=010405M
The Geologic Record and Climate Change
By Tim Patterson : 01 Jan 2005
The following remarks were delivered at the Risk: Regulation and Reality Conference by Dr. Tim Patterson, Professor of Geology at Carleton University. The conference was co-hosted by Tech Central Station and was held on October 7, 2004 in Toronto, ON.
I am a Quaternary geologist by profession. That is to say that my research interests are focused primarily on about the last 2 million years of Earth's history. An important aspect of my research is assessing past climate conditions. Thus I am also a paleoclimatologist. Earth's climate has varied considerably during the past 2 million years or so as indicated by the more than 33 glacial major advances and retreats that have occurred through this interval. Based on geologic paleoclimatic data it is obvious that climate is and has been very variable. Thus the only real constant about climate is change. It changes continually.
A primary role for climate researchers at present is to try and determine what the magnitude of natural climate variation is, and what sort of variation may be occurring at the present time is due to human induced causes. A major difficulty that we have is that the thermometer record only reaches back to the tail end of the 19th century. Unfortunately, many of the natural trends and cycles that occur in the natural climate system operate at scales that are longer than our thermometer record. A major question that needs to be addressed then hinges on determining whether the climate variability that has been observed through the 20th century -- during a warm-up that occurred at the end of the Little Ice Age that ended in the late 1800's, is unusual if you look at the larger paleoclimate record?
This is where paleoclimatologists like myself come in. Since thermometer records are so short we have to use what are termed proxy records. We look at records contained in the sediments, fossils, isotopes, etc. and then calibrate these records against thermometer records so that we can accurately determine past climate conditions in deep time.
-------------
A second example is that of North American land temperature trends. The very close correlation between sunspot number and temperature is very clear. At present there have been literally hundreds of studies carried out showing a similar correlation.
And so, the big question a person on the street might ask is, why hasn't it been acknowledged that the sun is the major control over climate variability? Why do so many fingers point to CO2 as the major climate control?
But if the sun is important to climate change what role do greenhouse gases play then? Greenhouse gases are really important. They make up something like 0.1 percent of our atmosphere and are a critical component of the Earths biosphere. If you listen to the rhetoric produced by some environmental groups one would come away with the understanding that , all greenhouse gases must be expunged. However, without them, the earth would be uninhabitable; it'd be too cold.
The media, special interest groups, and even some government produced literature all report that CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas. I was at the Canadian Museum of Nature a few months ago where a traveling display was set up that clearly, and erroneously I might add, indicated that CO2 was the most important greenhouse gas. The number one greenhouse gas is actually water vapor.
The bottom chart shows the range of global temperature through the last 500 million years. There is no statistical correlation between the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years and the temperature record in this interval. In fact, one of the highest levels of carbon dioxide concentration occurred during a major ice age that occurred about 450 million years ago. Carbon dioxide concentrations at that time were about 15 times higher than at present. (What caused the high CO2 values in the past? It couldn't have been man. Peter)
Let's move to a little bit more recent geological history. There have been about 33 glacial advances and retreats through the last two million years or so. Through the last 10,000 years we have been in the Holocene interglacial, a warm episode between the last glaciation and the next one that will begin in the relatively near, geologically speaking, future. The last glaciation peaked about 18,000 years ago with the ice sheets retreating rapidly over just a few thousand years. Before that there was another interglacial that began about 130,000 years ago and lasted about 10,000 years. In Europe that interglacial is known as the Eemian. Here in North America it is known as the Sangamon. As one goes back in time these intervals of about 10,000 years of interglacial interspersed with episodes of about 100,000 years of glaciation continue. (What causes the regular cycles of glacial advance (cooling) and glacial retreat (warming)? Man has only been around driving cars and burning coal for about the past 150 years. Peter)
What I would like to draw your attention to is the level of CO2 levels, as preserved in prehistoric air bubbles, from very high quality ice core records from Antarctica. When researchers first looked at the results from these cores they observed a repeating correlation between CO2 and temperature through several glacial/interglacial cycles. However, when they began to look at higher resolution cycles they say something different. They observed that temperature would go up first, with CO2 coming up later. This correlation indicates that as one might expect, as temperatures warm biological productivity increases, resulting in more CO2 in the atmosphere. The lag between CO2 and rising or falling CO2 levels is something like 800 years.
I teach a general climate change course. To get the significance of this correlation over to the students I use the following analogy. I tell the students that based on these records if you believe that climate is being driven by CO2 then they probably would have no difficulty in accepting the idea that Winston Churchill was instrumental in the defeat of King Herold by Duke William of Orange at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. If you can believe that this historical temporal incongruity could be feasible then you can have no problem believing that CO2 is what's driving Earth's climate system.
In conclusion, the geologic record clearly shows us that there really is little correlation between CO2 levels and temperature. Although CO2 can have a minor influence on global temperature the effect is minimal and short lived as this cycle sits on top of the much larger water cycle, which is what truly controls global temperatures. The water cycle is in turn primarily influenced by natural celestial cycles and trends.
Peter
From: http://www.tcsdaily.com/printArticle.aspx?ID=010405M
The Geologic Record and Climate Change
By Tim Patterson : 01 Jan 2005
The following remarks were delivered at the Risk: Regulation and Reality Conference by Dr. Tim Patterson, Professor of Geology at Carleton University. The conference was co-hosted by Tech Central Station and was held on October 7, 2004 in Toronto, ON.
I am a Quaternary geologist by profession. That is to say that my research interests are focused primarily on about the last 2 million years of Earth's history. An important aspect of my research is assessing past climate conditions. Thus I am also a paleoclimatologist. Earth's climate has varied considerably during the past 2 million years or so as indicated by the more than 33 glacial major advances and retreats that have occurred through this interval. Based on geologic paleoclimatic data it is obvious that climate is and has been very variable. Thus the only real constant about climate is change. It changes continually.
A primary role for climate researchers at present is to try and determine what the magnitude of natural climate variation is, and what sort of variation may be occurring at the present time is due to human induced causes. A major difficulty that we have is that the thermometer record only reaches back to the tail end of the 19th century. Unfortunately, many of the natural trends and cycles that occur in the natural climate system operate at scales that are longer than our thermometer record. A major question that needs to be addressed then hinges on determining whether the climate variability that has been observed through the 20th century -- during a warm-up that occurred at the end of the Little Ice Age that ended in the late 1800's, is unusual if you look at the larger paleoclimate record?
This is where paleoclimatologists like myself come in. Since thermometer records are so short we have to use what are termed proxy records. We look at records contained in the sediments, fossils, isotopes, etc. and then calibrate these records against thermometer records so that we can accurately determine past climate conditions in deep time.
-------------
A second example is that of North American land temperature trends. The very close correlation between sunspot number and temperature is very clear. At present there have been literally hundreds of studies carried out showing a similar correlation.And so, the big question a person on the street might ask is, why hasn't it been acknowledged that the sun is the major control over climate variability? Why do so many fingers point to CO2 as the major climate control?
But if the sun is important to climate change what role do greenhouse gases play then? Greenhouse gases are really important. They make up something like 0.1 percent of our atmosphere and are a critical component of the Earths biosphere. If you listen to the rhetoric produced by some environmental groups one would come away with the understanding that , all greenhouse gases must be expunged. However, without them, the earth would be uninhabitable; it'd be too cold.
The media, special interest groups, and even some government produced literature all report that CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas. I was at the Canadian Museum of Nature a few months ago where a traveling display was set up that clearly, and erroneously I might add, indicated that CO2 was the most important greenhouse gas. The number one greenhouse gas is actually water vapor.
The bottom chart shows the range of global temperature through the last 500 million years. There is no statistical correlation between the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years and the temperature record in this interval. In fact, one of the highest levels of carbon dioxide concentration occurred during a major ice age that occurred about 450 million years ago. Carbon dioxide concentrations at that time were about 15 times higher than at present. (What caused the high CO2 values in the past? It couldn't have been man. Peter)
Let's move to a little bit more recent geological history. There have been about 33 glacial advances and retreats through the last two million years or so. Through the last 10,000 years we have been in the Holocene interglacial, a warm episode between the last glaciation and the next one that will begin in the relatively near, geologically speaking, future. The last glaciation peaked about 18,000 years ago with the ice sheets retreating rapidly over just a few thousand years. Before that there was another interglacial that began about 130,000 years ago and lasted about 10,000 years. In Europe that interglacial is known as the Eemian. Here in North America it is known as the Sangamon. As one goes back in time these intervals of about 10,000 years of interglacial interspersed with episodes of about 100,000 years of glaciation continue. (What causes the regular cycles of glacial advance (cooling) and glacial retreat (warming)? Man has only been around driving cars and burning coal for about the past 150 years. Peter)
What I would like to draw your attention to is the level of CO2 levels, as preserved in prehistoric air bubbles, from very high quality ice core records from Antarctica. When researchers first looked at the results from these cores they observed a repeating correlation between CO2 and temperature through several glacial/interglacial cycles. However, when they began to look at higher resolution cycles they say something different. They observed that temperature would go up first, with CO2 coming up later. This correlation indicates that as one might expect, as temperatures warm biological productivity increases, resulting in more CO2 in the atmosphere. The lag between CO2 and rising or falling CO2 levels is something like 800 years.
I teach a general climate change course. To get the significance of this correlation over to the students I use the following analogy. I tell the students that based on these records if you believe that climate is being driven by CO2 then they probably would have no difficulty in accepting the idea that Winston Churchill was instrumental in the defeat of King Herold by Duke William of Orange at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. If you can believe that this historical temporal incongruity could be feasible then you can have no problem believing that CO2 is what's driving Earth's climate system.
In conclusion, the geologic record clearly shows us that there really is little correlation between CO2 levels and temperature. Although CO2 can have a minor influence on global temperature the effect is minimal and short lived as this cycle sits on top of the much larger water cycle, which is what truly controls global temperatures. The water cycle is in turn primarily influenced by natural celestial cycles and trends.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Global Warming Skeptics Are Coming Out in Force
I can sense a real battle brewing here, the gauntlet has been dropped, will Al Gore and the environmentalists turn tail and run? Let them show their cards and stop huffing and bluffing.
Here are some excerpts from Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. regarding global warming. To see the entire article, go here:http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3183.html
Peter
The Real Inconvenient Truth
By: Sen. Jim Inhofe March 20, 2007 01:16 PM EST
Senator James Inhofe, R-Okla., discusses energy legislation being debated on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, July 30, 2003. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
The New York Times -- nearly a year late -- is finally recognizing the scientific reality regarding fears of a man-made climate catastrophe. On March 13, a landmark article stated "scientists argue that some of (former Vice President Al) Gore's central points are exaggerated and erroneous."
It appears we are all skeptics now.
A separate U.N. report last year found that emissions (methane gas) from cows do more to drive global warming than C02 from cars.
An increasing number of government leaders and scientists are finally realizing that much of the motivation behind the climate scare has nothing to do with science.
Recently, prominent French scientist Claude Allegre recanted his belief in man-made catastrophic global warming and now says promotion of the idea is motivated by money. (This coming from a French Socialist, no less.)
New research by teams of international scientists is revealing that the sun has been a major driver of climate variability. Solar specialist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center explained, "We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years."
The usual suspects will still insist that there is a "consensus" of scientists who agree with Gore. And yes, many governing boards and spokesmen of science institutions must toe the politically correct line of Gore-inspired science, but the rank-and-file scientists are now openly rebelling.
Just ask James Spann, a certified meteorologist with the American Meteorological Society. Spann, who has nearly 30 years of experience as a weather expert, said in January that he does "not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype." In February, a panel of meteorologists expressed unanimous climate skepticism, and one panelist estimated that 95 percent of his profession rejects global warming fears.
Let me put this bluntly: Our political leaders in Washington are going to demand the American people make significant economic sacrifices by paying 4 percent more, 10 percent more or even higher for gasoline and home energy costs in order to "do something" to address the climate "crisis."
What do Americans get in return for this economic sacrifice?
They get real economic pain for no climate gain, and they get "solutions" that are purely symbolic. The American people may opt to shut down Washington, D.C., with a flood of phone calls, e-mails and faxes before they allow any of these "solutions" to become law.
Ironically, climate skeptics may owe Gore, Hollywood, liberal environmental groups and the mainstream media a big debt of gratitude. If it were not for the shrill, "sky is falling" rhetoric emitted by the elite jet-setters hyping this issue, the silent majority of scientific experts who reject alarmism might not have been stirred to action.
The real inconvenient truth is that global warming fearmongers have overplayed their hand and are now suffering a massive scientific and media backlash. America needs a rational science debate about climate variability. Achieving that goal now appears closer to reality.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public
Here are some excerpts from Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. regarding global warming. To see the entire article, go here:http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3183.html
Peter
The Real Inconvenient Truth
By: Sen. Jim Inhofe March 20, 2007 01:16 PM EST
Senator James Inhofe, R-Okla., discusses energy legislation being debated on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, July 30, 2003. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
The New York Times -- nearly a year late -- is finally recognizing the scientific reality regarding fears of a man-made climate catastrophe. On March 13, a landmark article stated "scientists argue that some of (former Vice President Al) Gore's central points are exaggerated and erroneous."
It appears we are all skeptics now.
A separate U.N. report last year found that emissions (methane gas) from cows do more to drive global warming than C02 from cars.
An increasing number of government leaders and scientists are finally realizing that much of the motivation behind the climate scare has nothing to do with science.
Recently, prominent French scientist Claude Allegre recanted his belief in man-made catastrophic global warming and now says promotion of the idea is motivated by money. (This coming from a French Socialist, no less.)
New research by teams of international scientists is revealing that the sun has been a major driver of climate variability. Solar specialist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center explained, "We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years."
The usual suspects will still insist that there is a "consensus" of scientists who agree with Gore. And yes, many governing boards and spokesmen of science institutions must toe the politically correct line of Gore-inspired science, but the rank-and-file scientists are now openly rebelling.
Just ask James Spann, a certified meteorologist with the American Meteorological Society. Spann, who has nearly 30 years of experience as a weather expert, said in January that he does "not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype." In February, a panel of meteorologists expressed unanimous climate skepticism, and one panelist estimated that 95 percent of his profession rejects global warming fears.
Let me put this bluntly: Our political leaders in Washington are going to demand the American people make significant economic sacrifices by paying 4 percent more, 10 percent more or even higher for gasoline and home energy costs in order to "do something" to address the climate "crisis."
What do Americans get in return for this economic sacrifice?
They get real economic pain for no climate gain, and they get "solutions" that are purely symbolic. The American people may opt to shut down Washington, D.C., with a flood of phone calls, e-mails and faxes before they allow any of these "solutions" to become law.
Ironically, climate skeptics may owe Gore, Hollywood, liberal environmental groups and the mainstream media a big debt of gratitude. If it were not for the shrill, "sky is falling" rhetoric emitted by the elite jet-setters hyping this issue, the silent majority of scientific experts who reject alarmism might not have been stirred to action.
The real inconvenient truth is that global warming fearmongers have overplayed their hand and are now suffering a massive scientific and media backlash. America needs a rational science debate about climate variability. Achieving that goal now appears closer to reality.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public
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