The story of manmade global warming, the one for which “the science was all in,” is over. In reality it never existed except in the minds and hearts of grant seeking scientists and academics, ratings obsessed television networks and opportunistic eco-activists.
The recent outrage of “climategate” showed really only one thing: the motivations of the advocates and alarmists, headed by Al Gore, are every bit as political as most people have suspected. But there is some science and some data that need to be discussed and the science shows much different conclusions than what has been passed as the “consensus”. After the recent furor it is almost preposterous that President Barack Obama just pledged a “cut in emissions” in the upcoming Copenhagen successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
Climate change is real. The earth has been coming out of a 450 year cold era known as the “Little Ice Age” since it bottomed out in the late 1600s. Hundreds of studies have verified the existence of this cold period. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tried to erase the climate history of the last 1,000 years in its 2001 report. They replaced all the peer reviewed studies of past climate with one that fit their needs. The now defunct “hockey stick” graph showed virtually no significant change in temperature of the world over the last 1,000 years. Conveniently the graph then shows a rapid and abrupt increase in global temperature during the last 100 years. This is of course due to our sin of burning fossil fuels and stoking the fires of global warming.
The only “evidence” that human activity is causing global warming has been computer models
The only “evidence” that human activity is causing global warming has been computer models. These models take what the people who develop them know about how the earth’s climate system works and attempt to predict the future. Computer models are not evidence. Evidence is something real, something concrete. The creator of the model can make it say whatever the creator wants it to say by adjusting parameters.
From this people have conjured up all sorts of climate disasters, movies, concerts, fixes and swindles with their varied political and economic benefactors and, of course, victims.
There was a study done in 2007 that showed the failings of computer model forecasts. The models showed that there exists a global warming “fingerprint” in the air. This fingerprint is a dramatic warming of the atmosphere, not on the ground but up twenty to fifty thousand feet in the air above the tropics. If this fingerprint is not there then the current global warming theory is wrong. The 2007 study revealed that real world temperature observations by weather balloons over a 50 year period showed no global warming fingerprint at all, none. The computer models had grossly overestimated the warming over the tropics. Real world observations trump computer models. Despite this revelation the climate alarmists continued to trumpet the coming doom if we don’t change our sinful ways. To do otherwise would threaten government grants to colleges and universities, research facilities and government agencies. Large corporations are developing eco-friendly technologies to replace fossil fuels and brokerage houses are looking to cash in big time on the evolving carbon trading markets. The United Nations is looking to use climate treaties to wrestle control of carbon emissions from independent nations. This will elevate the United Nations and its leaders to the role of effectively ruling the world energy consumption as a one world government authority.
Earth Radiation Budget Experiment Satellite, All the computer models were wrong
Enter 2009 and a new study by Dr. Richard Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi from MIT. As background we start with the prevailing predictions. The climate models say that as the oceans warmed by one degree celsius from the 1980s into the 1990s the amount of heat escaping to space would decrease. More heat would be trapped in the atmosphere, ultimately due to the burning of fossil fuels. The warming of the oceans was natural. All part of the large multi decadal temperature changes that have been known for years. Now if only we had a way to measure the amount of heat going out to space. If we did we could get some answers. We do, it’s called the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment Satellite (ERBE). It was in orbit above the earth measuring outgoing longwave radiation (heat) for sixteen years from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s. This is very significant. Now we had a tool, real world data that we could compare to the computer model predictions. It is the ultimate climate system umpire.
The results were stunning. The computer models, all eleven of them predicted that as the oceans and atmosphere warmed, the amount of heat escaping to space should decrease by 3 watts per square meter. If this were true then the theory of manmade global warming would have a strong footing.
The satellite data inflicted a bone crushing blow to this assumption. As the oceans and atmosphere warmed, the measurements showed that the amount of heat escaping to space increased by 4 watts per square meter from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s. All the computer models were wrong. If the atmosphere is not trapping heat generated by warming oceans then there is no manmade global warming taking place. The atmosphere compensated for the additional heat by opening the window a little more. The theory of global warming is lying on the canvas bloodied and dying. Alarmists will attempt to revive the carcass with even louder cries of impending doom and calls to repent. But increasingly this clamoring will fall on deaf ears. Science will ultimately prove the winner and the world will bury global warming in an icy grave where it belongs.
Art Horn is a meteorologist who has worked for CBS, NBC and ABC.
Michael J. Economides is Chairman of the Board of XGAS and Paleon Oil and Gas. He is also a Professor at the Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston. Publications include authoring or co-authoring of 14 professional textbooks and books, including The Color Of Oil and From Soviet to Putin and Back and over 200 journal papers and articles. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Energy Tribune.
Economides does a wide range of industrial consulting, including major retainers by national oil companies at the country level and by Fortune 500 companies. He has had professional activities in over 70 countries. In addition to his technical interests he has written extensively in wide circulation media in a broad range of issues associated with energy, energy economics and geopolitical issues. He also appears regularly as a guest and expert commentator on national and international television programs.
They can be reached at: Letters@canadafreepress.com
