Carbon forcing
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/12981092.html
By John Coleman (jcoleman@kusi.com)
The late Dr. Charles David Keeling, when a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, was the first to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere on a continuous basis. From ice core data it was determined that before the industrial era atmospheric CO2 concentration was between 275 and 280 parts per million (ppm). Carbon dioxide has risen continuously since then, and the average value when Dr. Keeling started his measurements in 1958 was near 315 ppm. By the year 2000 it has risen to about 367 ppmv (that is 367 molecules of CO2 for every one million molecules in the air).
Though much of this increase may simply be carbon dioxide degassing from warming oceans (much as you find with your cola as it warms), it is likely that some of this increase is a direct consequence of the use of fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. These fuels virtually powered the industrial revolution and are still the backbone of our modern civilization, providing the power to generate the electricity to cool our homes and offices, provide lights, television, radio and computers, power our cars and provide the heat to keep us from freezing in the winter. While scientists and engineers work to perfect the next generation of power sources, we still absolutely depend on fossil fuel to power our daily lives.
The Global Warming doomsayers say this increase in the CO2 in our atmosphere is producing a greenhouse effect that will result in runaway Global Warming, melting ice caps and glaciers, flooding the shorelines, destroying our crops and making our planet unlivable. To avoid Global Warming Armageddon, they demand we give up our modern standard of living. They don't want to wait for new power sources to be developed to replace fossil fuels.
When other scientists question how only 38 molecules of CO2 out of every 100,000 molecules of atmosphere can lead to such immediate, irreversible, disastrous consequences, they answer its because of "CO2 forcing". It is exactly that, "CO2forcing", that these doomsdayer scientists have put into their climate computer models. It's the only way they can get the models to predict the dire results of runaway Global Warming.
I have read a dozen complicated research papers on "CO2 forcing". They attempt to explain how the CO2 causes a chain of interactions with the primary greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, water vapor, to more than double the greenhouse effect that occurs naturally. Without this multiplier, CO2 has no major impact on climate. Despite their efforts, their conclusions are less than convincing.
And, now experts have come forward to totally dismiss "CO2 forcing". At the United Nations Intergovernmental Committee on Climate Change (UN IPCC) Conference in Bali in mid December,
Lord Christopher Monckton, an international business consultant specializing in the investigation of scientific frauds, a former adviser to UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher and presenter of the 90-minute climate movie Apocalypse? NO! , had a blunt message for conference participants. "Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing," Monckton told participants. "The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC" Monckton added.
At that conference Australian scientist Dr. David Evans made scientific presentations to delegates and journalists revealing the latest peer-reviewed studies that refute the UN's climate claims. Evans, a mathematician who did carbon accounting for the Australian government, recently converted to a skeptical scientist about man-made global warming after reviewing the new scientific studies. "We now have quite a lot of evidence that carbon emissions definitely don't cause global warming. We have the proof the IPCC models are wrong and we have the lack of a temperature going up the last 5 years," Evans said "Carbon Emissions Don't Cause Global Warming."
UN IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports since its inception going back to 1990, had a clear message to UN participants. "There is no evidence that carbon dioxide increases are having any effect whatsoever on the climate," Gray, who shares in the Nobel Prize awarded to the UN IPCC, explained. "All the science of the IPCC is unsound. I have come to this conclusion after a very long time. If you examine every single proposition of the IPCC thoroughly, you find that the science somewhere fails,"
And climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia reported that they have concluded a study that shows that observed patterns of temperature changes over the last thirty years are not in accord with what the greenhouse models predict and can better be explained by natural factors. The say that climate change is natural and cannot be affected or modified by controlling the emission of greenhouse gases, such as CO2.
Their results are in total conflict with the conclusions of the UN IPCC, however, they are supported by the results of the US-sponsored Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).
This report is the work of Professor David H. Douglass ( University of Rochester ), Professor John R. Christy ( University of Alabama ), Benjamin D. Pearson (graduate student), and S. Fred Singer ( University of Virginia ).
The fundamental question is whether the observed warming is natural or anthropogenic (human-caused). Lead author David Douglass said: “The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.”
Co-author John Christy said: “Satellite data and independent balloon data agree that atmospheric warming trends do not exceed those of the surface. Greenhouse models, on the other hand, demand that atmospheric trend values be 2-3 times greater. We have good reason, therefore, to believe that current climate models greatly overestimate the effects of greenhouse gases. Satellite observations suggest that GH models ignore negative feedbacks, produced by clouds and by water vapor, that diminish the warming effects of carbon dioxide.”
Co-author S. Fred Singer said: “The current warming trend is simply part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling. They are most likely caused by variations in the solar wind and associated magnetic fields that affect the flux of cosmic rays incident on the earth’s atmosphere. In turn, such cosmic rays are believed to influence cloudiness and thereby control the amount of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface and thus the climate.” Our research demonstrates that the ongoing rise of atmospheric CO2 has only a minor influence on climate change. We must conclude, therefore, that attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless. – but very costly.
Here is a link to this excellent paper:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf
Now that we have seen proof that the infamous hockey stick chart was dead wrong, the warming trend of the 90's has faded into a cooling trend, we know that CO2 forcing is a non-starter and the Arctic ice cap has returned to normal there is no evidence, no scientific case, no grounds for the continuing hype and frenzy in the media about Global Warming. In 20 years, or sooner, there will be lots of red faces and a chorus of "I told you so's"
Much of my supporting research information can be obtained via:http://www.ICECAP.us