Paul Douglas on 2006 Weather and Global Warming
January 10th, 2007,Paul Douglas, the senior meteorologist at the WCCO television in the Twin Cities, continues to impress me with his scientific take on global warming. See his comments on last year’s weather and warming trends in his StarTribune weather column today:
Wednesday will be the 34th day in a row of above average temperatures in the Twin Cities. The last 3 weeks of December ran 17 degrees above average in the metro area, a premature taste of March in January. The NCDC, the National Climatic Data Center, just announced that December was the warmest on record for Minnesota and 4 New England states…NCDC just revised their numbers and it now looks like 2006 was the warmest year on record for the contiguous U.S., edging out the previous record in 1998. The data comes from a network of 1200+ climate stations around the nation, all rural, to minimize the risk of warm air blowing in from nearby cities, tainting the data record. “The past 9 years have all been among the 25 warmest years on record for the contiguous U.S., a streak which is unprecedented in the historical record,” according to NCDC. They add “the rate of warming has accelerated over the last 30 years, increasing globally since the mid 1970s at a rate approximately 3 times faster than the century-scale trend.” To paraphrase: it’s not a typical, cyclical blip. It’s a spike.
Warming is happening, and the culprit is likely created by us humans. Denial of this fact will lead to needless death and suffering. Let’s pin that reality on the conscience of anyone who advocates a do-nothing approach to global warming.
February 6th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
The question of Global Climate Change as it is framed in the public discourse actually is an aggregation of four assertions. They are:
1.) There exists non-cyclical trends in specific measures of climate, most notably temperature
2.) These trends are anthropogenic
3.) Homeostasis will be insufficient to cause the trends to be asymptotic short of profound climate change
4.) The sum total of the results of climate change will be deleterious to humans
As a meteorologist, Paul is aware of most of the evidence underlying these assertions. He understands that the Earth undergoes profound climate changes, far in excess of what has occurred to date, that are normal and cyclical in nature. He is probably familiar with Christopher Scotese’s global temperature time line showing that even with the warming during the past 150 years, historically speaking, the Earth is still well within its usual temperature range, in fact, substantially on the cold side. Most of the temperature records that are quoted do not unambiguously show anything more than a return to the generally warmer period prior to what has been called ‘The Little Ice Age.’ Dr. John R Christy states, “…the Earth was evidently coming out of a relatively cold period in the 1800s so that warming in the past century may be part of this natural recovery.” We are surprised by the rapidity of the warming. However, we know far too little to be able to say whether rapid climate change is normal or peculiar. To be sure, the Earth is warming. Whether it will continue and whether it is non-cyclical is difficult to ascertain at this time.
If there is a non-cyclical component of climate trend lines, it is not immediately apparent from whence it comes. Since there has been a moderate increase in atmospheric CO2, that is clearly a candidate and perhaps is anthropogenic. However, Methane levels have also been increasing, which might implicate other sources. Cow, sheep and termite flatulence has been a popular culprit as of late. Also, as I am sure Paul is aware, the albedo of clouds, bodies of water, deserts, forests and fields are all different. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Albedo-e_hg.svg Additionally, the vast majority of greenhouse activity going on around our planet is the result of atmospheric H2O. Consequently, completely natural changes in cloud cover, global humidity, etc could be, at least to a degree, causal agents. Also, I know he understands that there are many mechanisms that pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and many mechanisms that take it out. Something like a reduction in the Indian monsoons could increase atmospheric CO2 by reducing the amount taken out of the system. Humans are putting CO2 and water vapor into the atmosphere by burning hydrocarbons. On the other hand, humans are turning low albedo forests and meadows into higher albedo crop lands. Also, if humans are contributing to desertification, this also tends to increase the albedo of the planet. In total, since the system is homeostatic, it’s a very tricky matter indeed to try to assess how much affect human activity has on global temperatures.
The earth has experienced periods of cold, like the present, and periods of warmth. However, it almost invariably oscillates between mean global temperatures of 12 C and 22C. This strongly suggests that the Earth’s atmospheric ‘cycles’ comprise a homeostatic system. As the Earth cools, snow is replaced by ice, cloud cover decreases exposing more water and land and the albedo of the planet decreases, leading to warming forces. As the Earth warms, the cloud cover increases, which increases albedo and tends to cool the planet. As he knows, this description is a vast over-simplification of the factors involved. However, it illustrates why the Earth has never careened off into either a perpetual ice planet or a Venus like hothouse.
Even if it is stipulated that there is anthropogenic global warming taking place, there is still the question of whether our current situation will be asymptotic at 22C or at something much lower? Perhaps the Indian Monsoons falling on the Tibetan Plateau over the past 30 million years has dropped so much of the carbon at the bottom of the ocean in the form of carbonates, that it is no longer possible to reach that temperature no matter how much fossil fuel we burn.
Even if we stipulate that there is anthropogenic global warming that is asymptotic at 22 C., we are still left with the question of whether, in total, such an outcome is deleterious to humans. We are, after all, a tropical animal. There is little doubt that a warmer planet would lead to larger temperature gradients which would lead to more energetic storms. There is also little doubt that the oceans would slowly rise and eventually swamp most of where humans currently live. An expansion of the tropics, though not where models are predicting most of the warming would manifest, could possibly lead to larger ranges for tropical diseases. On the other hand, sometime between about 10,000 years in the future and, let’s see, NOW, we are scheduled to enter back into an Ice Age. While the negatives are not pleasant, a return to an Earth of 50,000 years ago would undeniably kill millions if not billions of people. Also, with global warming, vast tracts of Canada and Siberia would suddenly become habitable and growing seasons would extend over vast regions of the northern hemisphere. It’s not so clear what would happen to Australia, but, basically a lot of that land could hardly become more useless.
Another way of looking at it is to imagine how humans would fare in a Jurassic world, thankfully sans dinosaurs. Although such a world would have some of the disadvantages mentioned above, they would mostly be rather localized and short term. The long term prognosis can only be thought of as wonderful. In summary, the rational gentleman of erudition should doubt the evidence and be highly skeptical of the doomsday predictions.
Michael Ferguson
PS. I noticed that the dud of a hurricane season in 2006 just didn’t get quite the play of 2005 in the media. Ô¿~
February 9th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Mr. Ferguson,
I respect your approach to the issue but lack the expertise to judge your argument on scientific grounds. I do believe there is a consensus view of scientists on this issue that is different from your own – that is, a consensus view that we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thereby reduce global warming.
It seems to me that we would want to err on the side of caution on this issue and mitigate our impact on the planet’s atmosphere. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions through lower consumption of energy would also seem to have plenty of other payoffs: reduced pollution in general, reduced use of foreign oil, money saved in the long run, etc.
I also feel there is an ethical issue here as well. If I believe in doing unto others as I would have them do unto me, then I would seek to reduce my contribution to global warming, which will likely lead to loss of land where some people now live due to a rising ocean level.
In the same way, I take many other actions that will reduce the likelihood that I will cause harm to others, as when I seek to drive carefully and at a safe speed.
March 14th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
This is in response to Bills comment.
Science is not a concensus or authoritarian driven activity. For one thing there is no way to establish just who is and who is not qualified to render an opinion. Elections and science have nothing to do with each other and the UN is not a scientic body. The UN is a political body whose representatives are politically appointed, many by some of the most unsavory people you could imagine. When you think of the advances made in physics, medicine, biology, etc would you ever associate any them with the UN or its so called “scientists”?
Science is not a belief system and science will never tell you to believe in anything. Science is always provisonal and the most learned men of science recognize this. The quantum theory that underlies all modern chemistry is almost certainly completely wrong, but as a tool is offers us remarkable ways to solve some problems that would otherwise be unsolveable. For many other problems the theory is quite hopeless and so those problems remain unsolved. Quantum thoery will be replaced by something that makes it look silly and primative and then, who knows, – give me warp 8 scotty.
The value of science lies not in ita abilty to explain; any number of competing religious or political belief systems can equally do that. The value of any science lies in its repeated demonstration of accurcy within the realms of the claim it predicts for a future outcome.
We have all been warned about “separation of chuch and state” but why do you suppose the warning is useful? When demand in a certain belief is supercharged with the might of political force individual liberty will always suffer. If you believe this (as I do) then must we equally be prepared to “separate science and state”, especially when the science compels us to “believe”.
March 15th, 2007 at 6:37 am
Elizabeth Kolbert, a writer for the New Yorker Magazine and author of “Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change” (Bloomsbury, 2006), wrote the following about the IPCC and its process. It refutes Mr. Frykman’s claims that these are “U.N. scientists”:
“Founded in 1988, the I.P.C.C. is a joint venture of the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization. Every four or five years, it conducts an exhaustive survey of the available data and issues a multi-volume assessment of the state of the climate. By the time the I.P.C.C. publishes an assessment, it has been vetted by thousands of scientists, as well as by the organization’s hundred and ninety-odd participating governments. The process guarantees that I.P.C.C. reports are conservative—indeed, frequently out of date—since every statement has had to pass review not just in Paris and London but also in Riyadh and Washington. The first I.P.C.C. assessment, issued in 1990, was noncommittal on the source of the warming that had been observed up to that point. In each subsequent report, the organization has moved cautiously but inexorably toward assigning responsibility. Last week’s assessment, the fourth, put the likelihood that human beings are the cause of global warming—now evident from “increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level”—at ninety per cent. It went on to note that temperatures will continue to climb for decades, that heat waves and floods will become more frequent, and that the last time the Arctic and the Antarctic were warmer than they are today for an extended period—before the start of the last Ice Age—global sea levels were at least thirteen feet higher.”
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/02/12/070212taco_talk_kolbert
January 18th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
PLUS THE SKY IS FALLING.
January 6th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
@mika yeah, that was stupid from your side