Transcript Climate Change for Potomac GOP

Climate Change:
Real?
Man-Made?
A Presentation to PotomacGOP
by Charley Martin
July 14, 2014
Climate Defined:
The meteorological conditions, including
temperature, precipitation, and wind, that
characteristically prevail in a particular region.
(American Heritage Dictionary)
The composite or generally prevailing weather
conditions of a region, as temperature, air
pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine,
cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year,
averaged over a series of years. (Dictionary.com)
Why Is the Global
Warming Discussion
Important?
Because It’s The Most Important
Scientific Issue of the Day
Governments have already spent billions of dollars, and
are poised to spend trillions of dollars to force a shift in
the world’s energy economy away from hydrocarbon
fuels
However, the processes that drive the climate are
extremely complex
The scientific community finds itself
sharply divided into two camps
What Both Camps Agree On
That the Earth is in a slight warming trend
– about 1 degree F in the last 100 years
That the industrial activity of mankind – the
very activity that brings about
advancements in the quality of life – is
responsible for an increase in the levels of
CO2 in our atmosphere in the last 100
years from ~300 ppm to ~390 ppm
Where the Two Camps
Disagree
The “Eureka, I have found it!” camp
fervently believes that the increase in
anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 levels are
causing the warming.
– This camp generally believes that
extraordinary government action is necessary
to avert a world-wide disaster.
– This camp hangs it hat on the “hockey stick”
graph of Michael Mann:
The Mann “Hockey Stick Graph”
And The Apparent Relation Between
Anthropogenic CO2 and Warming
The “Not So Fast!” Camp
“It’s a whole lot more complicated than
one or two graphs.”
The climate is influenced by many
variables, only one of which is the CO2
concentration in the atmosphere, which
may actually not be very important at all.
Let’s take our time to understand before
we do something rash in the name of
“saving the planet.”
Does the Sun Figure Into
Equation?
The global warming alarmists refuse to
consider the possibility that any other
factor might be responsible for the current
warming trend.
However, fluctuations in solar irradiance
and sunspot frequency actually provide a
better graphical fit to the observed
temperature variations.
Global Temperature vs Solar
Irradiance
Sea Surface Temperature vs
Annual Sunspot Number
What is CO2
Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless, chemically stable
gas that has always been a constituent part of our
atmosphere. It is not a pollutant. (The term “carbon
pollution” has become popular with the “warmists”.)
CO2 does not cause asthma or any other breathing
problems, contrary to “clean air” commercials you may see
on TV, specifically as sponsored by the American Lung
Association.
CO2 makes up about 390 parts per million (ppm) of our
atmosphere today, or about 0.039 %.
CO2 is absolutely essential to all plant life, and hence to all
animal life. We would do well to think of CO2 as plant food,
not “carbon pollution”.
The Carbon Cycle
(Units are gigatons)
Global Heat Balance
Solar Spectrum Coming In
Solar Blackbody Spectrum (5500C) at Earth's Surface
1800
1600
1400
W/m2/micron
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
0.00
1.00
Wavelength (micron)
2.00
Earth’s Spectrum Radiating Back
into the Universe
Earth Blackbody Radiation Spectrum at 13C
25
W/m2/micron
20
15
10
5
0
0.00
10.00
20.00
Wavelength (microns)
30.00
40.00
The Two Spectra on Same
Graph
Blackbody Spectrum of Sun at 5500C and Earth at 13C
1000
900
800
W/m2/micron
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
0.00
5.00
10.00
15.00
Wavelength (microns)
20.00
25.00
GH Gas Absorption of Earth’s
Blackbody Spectrum
CO2 Is Increasing, but…
The Temperature Data Set Is
Getting Smaller!
Can We Even Detect
“Climate Change”
In The Near Term
(The Last 100 years)?
Global Mean Temperature in the Age of
Modern Thermometers
What’s Happening to the Oceans?
What’s Happening with Hurricanes?
What’s Happening with Tornadoes?
“EF1 Equivalent” Tornado Frequency
CFMartin
What’s Happening with Rainfall?
What’s Happening to the Ice?
Northern and Southern Sea Ice Trends
How About the Last 2500 Years?
“Battle of the Graphs”
The upper “hockey stick” graph is from the
paper by Michael Mann, and is dominated
by tree ring proxy data from the North
American bristlecone pine.
The lower graph is a composite of
European proxy data from many sources,
and was the widely accepted
understanding of Northern Hemisphere
climate until Mann’s “hockey stick”
became fashionable as the global warming
alarmist’s rallying cry.
From Greenland Ice Data
What Does
Paleoclimatology
Tell Us?
(Analysis of Ancient Climate)
Evolution of Earth’s Pre-Cambrian
Atmosphere
Stromatolites
Phanerozoic Eon
540 MYA – Present
Continents form, drift,
reform
Life develops,
becomes diverse and
more complex
Climate and
atmosphere variable
Mass extinctions
CO2 During Phanerozoic
History of Temperature, CO2 and Ice for the
last 540 Million Years (Phanerozoic Eon)
Notes on Previous Graphs:
The extreme dip in CO2 levels at 300-350 MYA
accompanied the Permo-Carboniferous Ice Age and the
collapse of the great rain forests.
One may be tempted to conclude that too little CO2 is the
cause of ice ages. However, ice core data from the most
recent Pleistocene period indicates that the drop in CO2
follows the drop in temperature by 800-1000 years, as
the ocean surfaces cool and more atmospheric CO2
goes into solution into the water. The same is true of the
interglacial periods as the planet emerges from ice ages.
That is, the temperature always changes first, and then
the CO2 changes. To this point, Al Gore’s Inconvenient
Truth is grossly in error on the relationship between CO2
and temperature. CO2 is the effect, not the cause.
Last 5 Million Years
“Smoothed” Temperature History for Last 400
Thousand Years
CO2 and Glaciation
The Climate Models Aren’t Working!
Conclusions
The Earth is in a slight warming trend (~1 degree F in
100 years). This is not a cause for alarm or drastic
action. (Note: global temperature has been constant for
the last 16 years.)
The CO2 level is the atmosphere has increased from 300
ppm to 390 ppm over the last 100 years as a result of
human activity.
The Earth has experienced warming and cooling
throughout both its recent and its ancient history. The
climate changes all by itself, without any influence by
humankind.
Conclusions (cont’d)
There is no direct evidence that proves a
correlation between the current anthropogenic
CO2 increase and the temperature trend of the
last 100 years. In fact, a better correlation exists
between solar activity and temperature.
The alarmists warn of “runaway” climate change
if CO2 gets too much higher. In fact, CO2 levels
have been much higher in the history of the
planet. There is no evidence that CO2 has
played a major role in the climate changes of the
past. In fact, fluctuations in CO2 levels are much
more likely the result of climate changes, rather
than the cause.
Conclusions (cont’d)
The climate is a “chaotic,” robust, extremely
complicated collection of physical processes,
with many feedback mechanisms which tend to
have a self-correcting effect on the climate.
Much of the warming hysteria is based on the
predictions of mathematical models. These
models predict a monotonic increase in the
temperature of the Earth, but have failed to
duplicate the observed behavior. While it is
beneficial to try to understand how the climate
behaves through mathematical models, the
models must be validated by observations.
Al Gore and Roger Revelle
Roger Revelle was a renowned oceanographer and
taught at several institutions, including Harvard. One of
his students was Al Gore.
In his Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore praises Roger Revelle
for bringing rising CO2 from human activity to public
awareness, and for serving as his inspiration in Gore’s
political quest against “carbon pollution.”
Later in his life, as Revelle saw the overreaction to his
work by Gore and others, and by political bodies like the
UN IPCC, he urged caution. His second thoughts are
quoted on the next slide.
Roger Revelle’s Second Thoughts
From an Article Published by him and Fred Singer
(Excerpt from Wikipedia article on Roger Revelle)
“Drastic, precipitous and, especially, unilateral, steps to
delay the putative greenhouse impacts can cost jobs and
prosperity and increase the human costs of global
poverty, without being effective. Stringent economic
controls now would be economically devastating
particularly for developing countries.”
The article concluded:
“The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too
uncertain to justify drastic action at this time. There is
little risk in delaying policy responses.”
Resources for Skeptics
http://www.cfact.org/
http://www.climatedepot.com/
http://www.thegwpf.org/
http://icecap.us/
http://petitionproject.org/