New Study Explodes Human-Global Warming Story
Monday, December 10, 2007 9:55 AM
By: Philip V. Brennan
As much of the U.S. is being blasted by vicious ice storms, a blockbuster report published in a prestigious scientific journal insists that the evidence shows that climate warming is both natural and unstoppable and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant.
Writing in the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society, professor David H. Douglass (of the University of Rochester), professor John R. Christy (of the University of Alabama), Benjamin D. Pearson and professor S. Fred Singer (of the University of Virginia) report that observed patterns of temperature changes ("fingerprints") over the last 30 years disagree with what greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors, such as solar variability.
The conclusion is that climate change is "unstoppable" and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, as is proposed in current legislation.
According to Dr. Douglass: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.”
One of his co-authors, Dr. John Christy, added: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater.
"We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”
And the third co-author, Dr. S. Fred Singer, said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that has been seen in ice cores, deep-sea sediments, stalagmites, etc., and published in hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals.
"The mechanism for producing such cyclical climate changes is still under discussion; but they are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on the earth’s atmosphere.
"In turn, such cosmic rays are believed to influence cloudiness and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface and thus the climate.
"Our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change. We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless — but very costly."
Here's the link to the actual article:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/4735/home
Here's the abstract:
A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions
David H. Douglass 1 *, John R. Christy 2, Benjamin D. Pearson 1, S. Fred Singer 3 4
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA
2Department of Atmospheric Science and Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899, USA
3Science and Environmental Policy Project, Arlington, VA 22202, USA
4University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
email: David H. Douglass (douglass@pas.rochester.edu)
*Correspondence to David H. Douglass, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA.
Keywords
climate trend � troposphere � observations
Abstract
We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 Climate of the 20th Century model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data. Copyright © 2007 Royal Meteorological Society
Eventually, the entire article will doubtless turn up online, but when that might be I have no idea. I'll be looking for excerpts and follow-up studies in the near future.
This is great news, to see such an article published in a prestigious journal given the present intellectual and political climate regarding AGW. It appears there is still hope that ideology and science can once again be separated to such an extent that Climatology and related sciences can move forward without the nose ring of preconceived politically correct conclusions pulling the scientific debate in a certain direction.
Al Gore and the eco-Gnostics who permeate so much of government, the media, and academia are going to fight like bloody hell to preserve their alternative eschaton for planet earth (with all of its political implications) regardless of the evidence, so It'll be interesting to see where the debate heads now.