Exactly Who is the Global Warming Villain?

So there I was digging around looking for information on how the Global Warming scientists estimated the surface area and additional volume available on Earth's surface as sea level rises as part of their Global-Warming Gloom and Doom report where we all drown due to melting polar icecaps.

Take the Jordan Rift Valley where the Dead Sea lies. It is almost 1,400 ft below sea level. At some point, if the sea levels rise enough, water will start to flow into this void. Then there is Death Valley which covers 3,000 square miles over 700 feet below sea level. Once the level of the sea reaches a certain level, it will have to fill it before rising much further. Then there is still the additional surface area once it is filled, slowing any further rise.

I still have yet to find the calculations or models, but I would think that any animation showing a constant rise in sea levels is to a certain extent flawed as the total surface area covered by oceans will increase as the levels increase, requiring ever more water to raise sea levels each additional inch. (Unless of course the rate of melting is constantly increasing to compensate for the increased quantities needed for a steady rise in sea levels.) And, as I mentioned, there is the need to account for the filling of those dry areas such as Death Valley mentioned above. I would like to think that they are accounting for this additional surface area since they show the seas engulfing Florida and other coastal states, but those are animations, not models. I would hope that they are not just taking an average of past sea level rise and playing it forward. That’s just wrong.

One thing I did discover while searching for the information I mentioned above was the following interesting data in a PowerPoint Presentation by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (The presentation can be found on this page titled "Assessing the Physical Science of Climate Change: IPCC Working Group 1 (2007)". Direct Presentation/PPT link here.)

(Temperature Change, Months June - Aug, 1880-2006)

The first thought that crossed my mind was that the change of temperature across the US seems to be less than average for the globe, with some locations actually experiencing Global cooling. Notice that the chart records change over time, just for the months of June, July and August which are the Summer months in the Northern Hemisphere. So I went and generated a new map that calculated the temperature change for the whole year over time.

(Temperature Change, full year, 1880-2006)


(Temperature Change, Full Year, 1900-2000)



(Temperature Change, Full Year, 1906-2006)


(Temperature Change, Full Year, 1939-2006)

Here is the NOAA Temperature trends page where you can generate your own maps. As you can see, there is no striking increase in temperatures in the United States. Hell, a good portion of the country appears to have been cooling. At least the story below recognizes that there is no indication of continued global warming over the last couple of years.

Given the number of worldwide cold events, it is no surprise that 2007 didn't turn out to be the warmest ever. In fact, 2007's global temperature was essentially the same as that in 2006 - and 2005, and 2004, and every year back to 2001. The record set in 1998 has not been surpassed. For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming. Even though atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to accumulate - it's up about 4 percent since 1998 - the global mean temperature has remained flat. That raises some obvious questions about the theory that CO2 is the cause of climate change. - Boston.com

Yes, well the simple answer is that we know little about Global Warming. That was a comment made by a NASA climate scientist I was sitting next to last year while flying back to the US from a work trip. I agree, that there has been warming. I remember much more snow falling on Long Island back in the late 70's than falls there now. But to recognize warming is one thing. Finding a cause is another.

I would say that the illustrations above put doubt on CO2 being a leading cause as if it were, then why doesn't the data show large increases for the US? Maybe all the excess carbon is being absorbed by the forests in the US? You could claim that it is flowing west and north to Canada, but that would require the gases to flow against the Jet Stream. Clearly, the maps do show a global trend of warming. But funny that the #1 assumed villain is not suffering like the rest of the planet. Looking at the data above, it is not the US that needs to act, but the rest of the world.

We know little about Global Warming

Here are some stories clipped over the last year or so as examples that Global Warming science is far from being fully established. So be careful the next time you blame human activity as the cause.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting at least one element of current man-made global warming scares. More than 300 of the scientists found evidence that 1) a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to ours since the last Ice Age and/or that 2) our Modern Warming is linked strongly to variations in the sun's irradiance. "This data and the list of scientists make a mockery of recent claims that a scientific consensus blames humans as the primary cause of global temperature increases since 1850," said Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery.

Other researchers found evidence that 3) sea levels are failing to rise importantly; 4) that our storms and droughts are becoming fewer and milder with this warming as they did during previous global warmings; 5) that human deaths will be reduced with warming because cold kills twice as many people as heat; and 6) that corals, trees, birds, mammals, and butterflies are adapting well to the routine reality of changing climate. - EarthTimes.Org

and:

"We have had a Greenhouse Theory with no evidence to support it-except a moderate warming turned into a scare by computer models whose results have never been verified with real-world events," said co-author Singer. "On the other hand, we have compelling evidence of a real-world climate cycle averaging 1470 years (plus or minus 500) running through the last million years of history. The climate cycle has above all been moderate, and the trees, bears, birds, and humans have quietly adapted." - EarthTimes.Org

Comments by meteorologist James Spann:

“The Weather Channel” Mess
January 18, 2007, 5:45 pm James Spann

Well, well. Some “climate expert” on “The Weather Channel” wants to take away AMS certification from those of us who believe the recent “global warming” is a natural process. So much for “tolerance”, huh?

I have been in operational meteorology since 1978, and I know dozens and dozens of broadcast meteorologists all over the country. Our big job: look at a large volume of raw data and come up with a public weather forecast for the next seven days. I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can’t find them. Here are the basic facts you need to know:

*Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up. This is big money, make no mistake about it. Always follow the money trail and it tells a story. Even the lady at “The Weather Channel” probably gets paid good money for a prime time show on climate change. No man-made global warming, no show, and no salary. Nothing wrong with making money at all, but when money becomes the motivation for a scientific conclusion, then we have a problem. For many, global warming is a big cash grab.

*The climate of this planet has been changing since God put the planet here. It will always change, and the warming in the last 10 years is not much difference than the warming we saw in the 1930s and other decades. And, lets not forget we are at the end of the ice age in which ice covered most of North America and Northern Europe.

If you don’t like to listen to me, find another meteorologist with no tie to grant money for research on the subject. I would not listen to anyone that is a politician, a journalist, or someone in science who is generating revenue from this issue.

In fact, I encourage you to listen to WeatherBrains episode number 12, featuring Alabama State Climatologist John Christy, and WeatherBrains episode number 17, featuring Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University, one of the most brilliant minds in our science. WeatherBrains, by the way, is our weekly 30 minute netcast.

I have nothing against “The Weather Channel”, but they have crossed the line into a political and cultural region where I simply won’t go. - "http://www.jamesspann.com/blog.htm"

Add the following:

When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.

The small print explains “very likely” as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain’s top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works. - Times Online

And this:

Meet the world's top destroyer of the environment. It is not the car, or the plane,or even George Bush: it is the cow.

A United Nations report has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.

The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world's 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.

Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow feed, to produce meat and to transport it - and clearing vegetation for grazing - produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And their wind and manure emit more than one third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world 20 times faster than carbon dioxide. - Independent (Also, more here.)

Read the rest of the story as livestock are apparently causing all sorts of other environmental problems both on land AND at sea.

There is more on livestock problems here:

As Congress begins to tackle the causes and cures of global warming, the action focuses on gas-guzzling vehicles and coal-fired power plants, not on lowly bovines.

Yet livestock are a major emitter of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. And as meat becomes a growing mainstay of human diet around the world, changing what we eat may prove as hard as changing what we drive.

It's not just the well-known and frequently joked-about flatulence and manure of grass-chewing cattle that's the problem, according to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Land-use changes, especially deforestation to expand pastures and to create arable land for feed crops, is a big part. So is the use of energy to produce fertilizers, to run the slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants, and to pump water.

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems," Henning Steinfeld, senior author of the report, said when the FAO findings were released in November.

Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, reports the FAO. This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Altogether, that's more than the emissions caused by transportation.

The latter two gases are particularly troubling – even though they represent far smaller concentrations in atmosphere than CO2, which remains the main global warming culprit. But methane has 23 times the global warming potential (GWP) of CO2 and nitrous oxide has 296 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. - Christian Science Monitor

And lets not forget the Earth-destroying Moose:

The poor old Scandinavian moose is now being blamed for climate change, with researchers in Norway claiming that a grown moose can produce 2,100 kilos of methane a year -- equivalent to the CO2 output resulting from a 13,000 kilometer car journey.

Norway is concerned that its national animal, the moose, is harming the climate by emitting an estimated 2,100 kilos of carbon dioxide a year through its belching and farting.

Norwegian newspapers, citing research from Norway's technical university, said a motorist would have to drive 13,000 kilometers in a car to emit as much CO2 as a moose does in a year. - Spiegel Online

Lets not forget the methane emissions from bogs either:

new study that will appear in Thursday's journal Nature revealed that methane being released from bogs in what is now Great Britain likely contributed to global warming 55 million years ago.

Maybe more importantly, when you add up the methane being released from wetlands around the world, it could completely counteract all the carbon dioxide emissions reductions mandated by the Kyoto Protocol. - NewsBusters

Then there is data suggesting that Old forests less useful than earlier believed and that cold winters end up releasing more CO2 from the ground than mild winters do.

There is also data suggesting that clouds act as an adaptive iris for the Earth, shading it more as the Earth gets warmer.

The UN does not help things by making false assumptions.

In a paper submitted to US Senate Committee hearings, Polish Professor Zbigniew Jaworowski, a veteran mountaineer who has excavated ice from 17 glaciers on six continents, stated bluntly,

"The basis of most of the IPCC conclusions on anthropogenic [human] causes and on projections of climatic change is the assumption of low level of CO2 in the pre-industrial atmosphere. This assumption, based on glaciological studies, is false." - The Astute Bloggers

Finally, there is the basic issue of whether the whole Global Warming movement is nothing much more than a huge scam, something that I agree with.

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment. - ICECAP (Found at Newsbusters)

Eventually, the truth will come out. The question is, how much money and sacrifice will be wasted before we realize that our efforts have been misdirected. Also, how many lives will suffer for it? (Especially in the third-world.)

Cow 'emissions' more damaging to planet than CO2 from cars - Independent, UK

IPCC Fourth Assessment Report - Wikipedia

List of places on land with elevations below sea level - Wikipedia