Transcript Predicting 21 st Century Global Warming with the 1500

Predicting 21st Century Global Warming
with the 1,500-Year Climate Cycle
Dennis T. Avery, Hudson Institute
before the Heartland Institute’s
2nd International Climate Change Conference,
New York, N.Y., March 8-10, 2009
The “Consensus” View of Global Warming
• Warming due to human emissions of greenhouse
gases.
• Major—and dangerous—increase in global
temperatures in the next century or so.
• Polar ice melt could sharply raise sea levels,
threatening coastal cities and populations.
• Floods, droughts and storms will all worsen,
disrupting the world’s economies.
• Human deaths will increase.
• Wildlife species such as polar bear endangered.
The “Solar View” of Global Warming
• Warming began about 1850, too early to be blamed
on man-made greenhouse emissions.
• Warming totaled 0.5 degree C by 1940.
• Net warming since 1940--essentially zero.
Temperature decline of 2007/8 continues.
• CO2 has almost no correlation with our thermometer
record since 1860: 22% and falling.
• Sunspots’ correlation with earth’s temps: 79% and
rising for past decade. Argues for solar cause.
• Could the “consensus” be wrong?
The New Evidence
No global warming trend since 1998.
Global temperatures dropped sharply in 2007and 2008,
1st decline in 30 years.
The cooling was predicted by the sunspot index, nearly
10 yrs earlier.
The oceans “stopped warming 4-5 years ago,” says
NASA, based on new Argo ocean buoys. Nowhere to
hide “extra” heat.
NASA confirms Pacific has entered 25-30 year cooling
phase, lowering global temperatures.
Climate models predicted none of this.
Warming Claims Inflate As Temperatures Fall
• “. .we have to assume that risks of negative impacts
for climate change on humans and Nature are larger
than just a few years ago.” Potsdam Inst. Of Climate
Change, Feb. 24, 2009
• “Climate change will wipe out most life on earth by
the end of this century and man is too late to avert
catastrophe.” James Lovelock, Feb.26, 2009
• “The time for delay is over; the time for denial is
over." President-elect Obama, December 14, 2008
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Earth’s Moderate, Natural
1,500-Year Warming Cycle
Discovered in the Greenland and Antarctic ice cores
in 1980s.
Warmings abruptly shift temperatures 2-4 degrees at
latitude of Washington, D.C.
Cycles last average of 1470 years during Ice Ages,
but are more erratic during interglacial warmings.
Medieval Warming (950-1300 AD), Roman Warming
(200 BC-600 AD), two Holocene Warmings 5,000
and 8,000 years ago—all warmer than today.
Greens know about this cycle; gave its discoverers
the “environmental Nobel” in 1996.
Physical Evidence of the 1,500-Year Climate
Cycle
• Ice cores: ratio of “heavy oxygen” to “light oxygen”
tells us air temperature when ice laid down.
Dansgaard, 1984; Lorius, 1985, Dahl-Jensen, 1998.
• Ice-rafted glacial debris, North Atlantic. Bond, 2001.
• Plankton microfossils in sediments of 9 oceans,
hundreds of lakes. Kiegwin, 1996; de Menocal, 2000,
etc..
• Boreholes globally. Huang, 1997
• Ancient tree rings. K. Briffa, 1992.
• Cave stalagmites, all continents. Neff, 2001, etc.
• Fossil pollen. Viau, 2002.
Ice Cores Revealed the 1,500-Yr
Cycle
Seabed Sediments Confirmed It
Climate swings of past 12,000 years
•
Co2 can’t explain pre-1940 warming,
or the post-1940 cooling
Solar variations link to decade-later
changes in sea surface temperatures
Sunspot correlation—79%
CO2 correlation—22%
The Sun-Climate Connection
• The weaker the sun, the less the earth is shielded from
cosmic rays.
• Fewer cosmic rays hitting earth mean fewer of the
low, wet clouds that deflect heat--and cool the planet.
• The clouds amplify slight changes in solar activity
about fourfold.
• Hence, a slightly more active sun means a
significantly warmer earth.
Cosmic rays create cloud seeds from
water vapor, sulfuric acid
Cosmic Rays
Cloud seeding
Sunspot numbers
Solar Forecast for Next Two Decades?
• Sunspots and Pacific sea surface cooling both now
predict 20-30 year global cooling due to short-term
Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
• IPCC still predicts relentless warming—2 to 4.5
degrees C. by 2100 with no interruptions. But the
failed climate models are the only “evidence.”
• No immediate reason to expect another Ice Age.
• Cooling from 1940-1975 was moderate, 0.1-0.2
degree C.
• Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle implies modest further
warming over longer term.
What is this Pacific Decadal Oscillation?
• Found first in Columbia River salmon catch records.
Other fish (herring, haliibut) tree rings, rainfall.
• PDO governs earth temperatures as largest heat sink.
• Ten PDOs in last 400 years. D’Arrigo, 2005.
• Last PDO warming 1977-1998. Stuttered 1998-2008,
until NASA satellite confirmed cooling shift last yr.
• Both sunspots (since 2000) and Pacific cooling
(2008) now forecast cooling for next 25years.
How hot will it get eventually?
• If past D-O cycles are the guide, we should already
have about half the total Modern Warming.
• Should get no more than another 0.5 degree C,
arriving erratically over next century or two.
• Warning: Drought patterns will shift as tropical rain
belts move north, bringing Mexican Desert to
California and maybe century-long drought to the
Mid-Atlantic.
• Cycles don’t create drought, but move it radically
north and south with the tropic rain belts.
History Says the Global Warmings
Have Been the Good Times
• World population doubled in Medieval Warming.
Good crops, less disease, no Bubonic plague.
• Most of Europe’s castles, cathedrals built then. Also
many of India’s famous temples, vast temple complex
at Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
• “little ice ages” mean longer, colder winters, worse
storms, poor growing seasons, more disease.
• In American Revolution, British moved cannon to
Staten Island—on New York harbor ice! Tons of
cannon, tons of horses. 16 below zero F?
When Will This Warming End?
– We don’t have wonderful precision on its length.
Roman Warming lasted 800 yrs, Medieval 350.
Biggest news is that it will end.
– We can hope our warming will last another 600
yrs—but don’t know.
– End of warming brings far colder, less stable
weather. Either “little ice age” or Big One.
– In full-scale Ice Age, temperatures could drop 10
degrees C over hundreds of years.
What are the Odds on Another Ice Age?
• Seems certain. Pattern for 4 million years.
• Textbooks say the interglacials last 10-12,000 years.
Ours may have started with Younger Dryas Event
12,900 years ago. Comet?
• If our warming reaches 13,000 years it will be
“elderly.” Expect Ice Age within 1,000 years?
• Humans and animals crowd toward equator. Caves
and underground homes become logical choices.
• Extinction of the cave bears.
How Many Species Will Be Lost to Global
Warming?
• James Hansen, NASA, says half the species could be
lost to greenhouse emissions. Guardian, 2/15/09.
• But past species collapses were due mostly to
asteroid/comet collisions.
• No species collapse known was due to CO2.
• Most species evolved in higher CO2 concentrations.
Wm. Happer, Princeton physicist, before U.S. Senate
committee, Feb. 25, 2009
No Species Lost to Global Warming Yet
• D-O cycles are usually abrupt. The wildlife have
been through sudden climate change before.
• We have not studied the species’ coping strategies,
but are finding much more flexibility than expected.
Butterflies adopt new food sources.
Bush crickets have longer wings.
Antarctic fish can survive in much warmer water.
Birds are moving poleward without giving up old
habitat.
• Hundreds of biologists have documented richer
biodiversity in current warming.
What About the Polar Bears?
• Arctic ice back to “normal” last winter. Wind, not
melting, created open water in summer 2007.
• Polar bears relatively young species, but jawbone on
Svalbard sediment-dated to 110-130,000 yrs ago.
• Thus the bears survived big warmings 8,000 and
4,000 yrs ago, plus hot Eemian Interglacial before last
Ice Age.
• Golden toad of Costa Rica claimed lost to warmer
Pacific. But lower slopes of cloud forest mountain
cleared for cattle. No species “warmed out” yet.
Why More U.S. Drought?
Tropic rain belts move 500 mi. north during warmings.
Mexican desert invades California. Two megadroughts during Medieval Warming.
Southern U.S. states were much dryer. Mid-Atlantic
megadroughts from Greenbrier cave.
Technology to the rescue?
• Biotech: drought-tolerant wheat, 20% more grain in
droughts. Soon corn?
• Southern U.S. grows sorghum vs. corn. Irrigation?
• San Diego can distill seawater for drinking, recycle
gray water—if there’s energy.
New Endorsement of Sun-Climate Connection
• Nir Shaviv of Hebrew University, Jerusalem. “The
Ocean as a Calorimeter to Quantify Solar Forcing.”
Journal of Geophysical Research,2008.
• Three independent measures:
Sea temperature variations, 20th century.
Sea level change rates, 20th century.
Net downward heat flux reaching oceans, last 50
yrs.
Oceans show changes in solar irradiance get amplified
on earth by 5-7 fold! Doesn’t tell us how.
Japanese Science Report Breaks with
Man-Made Warming
• Japan Society of Energy and Resources, 2009 report.
Advisors to government. Relies on Japan’s science.
• Finds earth warming not due to CO2. (3-2 majority)
• Confirms Dansgaard cycles, Pacific Oscillation,
projects cooling for coming decades.
• “It seems that global warming and the halting of the
temperature rise are related to solar activity.”
• “The conclusion that . .atmospheric temperatures are
likely to show a continuous, monotonic increase
should be perceived as an unprovable hypothesis.”
How Much Sea Level Rise?
• Hansen claimed might get 60-ft. rise in 400 years,
based on 14,000 years ago. Literally incredible.
• 14,000 yrs ago was the end of an Ice Age. Ice a mile
thick over northern U.S. and Europe. Oceans had
fallen 400 feet as water held in ice sheets.
• Antarctic sea ice at record extent past 3 yrs.
• Satellites say E. Ant. Ice Sheet adding 45 billion tons
of ice per year due to more snow.
• IPCC says 18-59 cm sea level rise by 2100.
• Last 300 yrs has been 6 inches per century (7 to 23
cm) w/ no acceleration.
Thank you, on behalf of
Willi Dansgaard,
Hans Oeschger,
and more than 700 peer-reviewed
researchers who have published
physical evidence of their 1,500-year
climate cycle.
Books by Dennis Avery:
Unstoppable Global Warming—Every 1,500 Years
(Roman and Littlefield) 2006. Bookstores, Online
Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastic: the
Environmental Triumph of High-Yield Farming
(Hudson Institute) 1995.