Science is about using observation and reason to understand the physical world. Some people are suspicious of computer models and theories; so here is some of the the basic data in pictures and graphs.

Ice Ages: In the past, the Earth’s temperature has varied from the Ice Ages to the much warmer temperatures of the interglacial periods.  Ice core data gives a good picture of what has happened to the Earth’s temperature in the last half million years, as shown by the blue line. The changing temperatures are attributed to the  Milankovitch cycles,  small variations in the Earth’s orbit that cause the Earth to receive different amounts of sunlight. The Earth becomes slowly warmer during the periods where the solar energy increases. As the Earth begins to be warmed by sunlight, CO2 becomes less soluble in the ocean and the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere increases, which further amplifies the warming since CO2 is a greenhouse gas.  The CO2 did not rise above 300 ppm in any of the the warmer interglacial periods but it is now 392 ppm and rising.

  CO2: Man is now putting about 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year. About half of it dissolves in the ocean, making them 20% more acidic, and the rest increases the concentration in the air.

Temperature: CO2 is one of the greenhouse gases that warm the Earth, and NASA’s graph shows how its increase is changing the Earth’s temperature:

The Sun: The current global warming is often wrongly attributed to an increase in intensity of the sun. The sunspot activity does not show up above the noise in the temperature record above – and the solar irradiance increased slightly until 1960 and has declined slightly since then.

 Arctic Ice: Many of the changes in the Earth are subtle but this NASA picture clearly shows  how the Earth is changing:

  Arctic ice:  The next two graphs show quantitatively how both the extent and the volume of the Arctic ice is changing.

Arctic ice volume at each years minimum.

 Antarctica: Research by Steig and by O’Donnell  show that Antarctica is warming. The warmer oceans result in more snowfall which increases the inland glacier mass, but the erosion of ice by the warmer oceans is causing an overall loss of ice mass.

Antarctic Ice Mass from GRACE satellite data.

Greenland: The Greenland ice sheets are also beginning to decline, also.

Ocean Level Rise: The melting ice sheets, melting glaciers, and thermal expansion are causing the oceans to rise by about 3 mm per year which, though it seems small, amounts to an increase in ocean volume of 1190 cubic kilometers/yr.

Rise in Sea Level.

 Severe Weather: Warmer temperatures increase both the rate of evaporation and the energy and moisture in the air. This increases the risk of severe weather, droughts, and wildfires. Large insurance companies such as Suisse Re now consider global warming a risk factor as there has been a fivefold increase in billion-dollar weather events in the last 30 years.

 Droughts: Below is the Palmer Drought Index which includes most of the continental areas used for food production. Zero represents average rainfall and -4 represents extreme drought. After 1980, drought conditions have grown worse worldwide, and no one disputes the effect of droughts on food production. 

Note : This was posted on 08/31/2011 and last updated on 04/03/2012 .

(c) 2011  J.C. Moore

“Pictures of the polar region from 1979 and 2003 clearly show that about 30% of the Arctic  ice has melted. This has greatly affected the way of life of the native Inuit who live and hunt on the Polar ice.  While some may adapt, their way of life and culture, which sustained them for centuries, will be destroyed.”

Although arguments still rage about whether the Arctic sea ice is disappearing, the disappearance is a fact of life for those who live near the Arctic Ocean.   The photos clearly show that the Arctic Sea ice is disappearing. A recent TulsaWorld article described how the disappearance of the Arctic sea ice has affected the lives of the native Inuit people in Greenland. Ice which used to be 2 meters thick in the winter, now grows only a few centimeters thick, far too thin to allow dogsleds to go to the nearest town, 50 miles away across the bay. They can no longer venture onto the ice to hunt for seals or walrus, a mainstay of their diet,  nor can they go out on the ice to fish. The Polar bears they sometimes hunt have no fat, as the bears cannot swim to the ice packs to hunt, and they sometimes prowl the villages looking for food.

Drilling for oil has picked up in the area as the ices disappears, but so far little oil has been found. Exploration continues, and if oil is eventually found, it carries the possibility of  economic development. But it also carries  the possibility that an oil spill, almost impossible to clean up in the icy  environment, would destroy much of the ocean life the natives now depend on for food. The sad thing is that they are being forced to change a way of life that sustained them for centuries. While some may adapt, their way of life and culture will be destroyed, and many will likely end up among the poor and unemployed.

(c) 2011 J.C. Moore

2011 Wildfire Terlton OK

In 1998, the US refused to ratify the Kyoto Treat which would have limited the release of greenhouse gases, primarily CO2, into the atmosphere. The refusal was based mainly on the highly inflated financial costs, without adequately considering the costs of inaction. On a per capita basis the US emits six times as much CO2 as any other country. Without our participation and leadership, the world has failed to stem the release of CO2 into the air, and scientists tell us that this is leading to a warmer Earth, more extreme weather, crop failure, droughts, and wildfires. We have  certainly experienced many of those things recently and it should make us think about what our failure to ratify the Kyoto Treaty may mean to us.

Three weeks ago the local Cleveland American’s front-page story was about the heat wave and the drought. Channel 6 Weather reported that this year Oklahoma set a record for highest temperatures of any state, ever. Recently, NASA reported this has been the hottest decade since records began in 1880, with 2010 and 2005 tied for the hottest years. A recent poll of climate scientists found that 97% of those active in research agree that the Earth is getting warmer and the main factor is man’s release of carbon dioxide into the air. The other 3% of the scientists get enough publicity to keep the public confused, especially since the climate scientists cannot claim certainty in their predictions, but only increased chances.

A recent paper from the University of Colorado predicted that global warming would cause higher probabilities of extreme weather, heat waves, droughts, crop failure, and wildfires. We’ve certainly seen all that happen this year. Last week, the Cleveland American’s front page story was on the devastating wildfires in the surrounding Pawnee County. Around 15,000 acres of our county burned, 40 homes when up in flames, one person died, and many were injured.  It stretched the resources of our emergency services to the limit and had it not been for the heroic efforts of our firefighters, many of them volunteers, the devastation would have been much worse.

Skeptical scientists, and many of our politicians, dispute the scientific evidence and claim there is not really a problem. They say that efforts to stop global warming will cause us too much inconvenience and expense. We might want to think about how inconvenient and expensive it is for us to lose our crops, homes, and in some cases our loved ones?

The Scientific Consensus: All the major scientific organizations in the world have endorsed a  statement similar to that of the American Chemical Society:

”Careful and comprehensive scientific assessments have clearly demonstrated that the Earth’s climate system is changing rapidly in response to growing atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases and absorbing aerosol particles. There is very little room for doubt that observed climate trends are due to human activities. The threats are serious and action is urgently needed to mitigate the risks of climate change.” 

  This urgent message continues to be mainly ignored by the public and our politicians. This seems strange as scientist’s trustworthiness is  highly rated  by the public, with 84% having a favorable view of scientists .  In spite of the scientist’s warning, a  Gallup poll found American’ s concern about global warming has fallen from just three years ago, when 66%  said they were worried about the problem, to only 51% today   A recent CNN  poll  found that 97% of scientists who are actively engaged in research in climate science agree that global warming is occurring and the primary cause is man’s activities. There is clearly a scientific consensus on the matter, but the public seems confused on the issue. That is because the 3% of the climate scientists who do not agree with the scientific consensus receive an inordinately large amount of publicity.

The Misinformation Pipeline: While skepticism based upon reason makes science stronger, many of the skeptics do not have that as a goal.  Many skeptics publish their articles in rather obscure journals where they are not peer-reviewed by competent climate scientists.  Occasionally, one of the skeptics has a paper published in a major journal, and though some of these make major contributions, many of them are later found to contain incorrect assumptions and errors. The errors are usually pointed out in letters and articles in the journals, and should require retraction or correction, but some of the skeptics have refused to do so, and instead launch attacks upon their critics. While other climate scientists are well aware of the errors, the general public is not, and they often remember the controversy  as evidence that “ the science is not settled”. These controversies, and erroneous results, are often delivered to the public through a well-funded misinformation pipeline. The pipeline carries the misinformation from the uncorrected or obscure journals articles to blog sites, through biased institutes and think tanks, and often into respectable newspapers and magazines. Spin is added along the way and the headlines are made more and more sensational as the information moves along the pipeline. What comes out of the pipeline often bears little resemblance even to the original article, but that matters little as the purpose of the pipeline is to spread doubt.

Speed is of the essence as it is important to get the message “out there” before it can be debunked. Because, once ”out there”, it is  difficult to correct it in the minds of the public. One good example of this is the controversy that arose over an article by Steig, et. al. which had been featured on the cover of Nature. Steig found that over the last fifty years, the Antarctic had been getting warmer by 0.1 C per decade. A year later, an article with the headline “O’Donnell et al 2010 Refutes Steig et al 2009″ appeared on many news and blog sites. However, O’Donnell’s paper was nowhere to be found. The source of the headline was traced to skeptic Steve McIntyre’s ClimateAudit website. It turned out that McIntyre was one of the authors of the paper, and he had circulated the phony headline over two weeks before O’Donnell’s paper was published. Now, that is fast. And O’Donnell’s article hardly refuted Steig’s, as he also found that Antartica was warming, but a slightly different geographical pattern.  

Tracing a Path: A more recent example was an article that appeared on MSNBC’s Newsvine blog site. The headline read:  New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism – Yahoo! News and it had the summary :

 ”The underlying physics does not support the James Hansen CO2 model and nor does the data. End of Story.”

That is certainly not accurate, as Hansen, the director of NASA, has published many peer-reviewed articles  based upon NASA’s data that show that CO2 is primarily responsible for global warming. It was unlikely that a single article published by climate skeptic Roy Spencer in the rather obscure journal, Remote Sensing, would blow a hole in anything. Nor was it the end of the story.  Tracing the story backwards shows how misinformation about global warming is rapidly spread through the news media. I reported this story to Newsvine as inaccurate and mis-categorized. The headline is sensationalized, and no reasonable news story would describe climate scientists as “alarmists” 15 times. However, Newsvine did not act as it was categorized as “news” by Yahoo!News. I contacted Yahoo!News and explained that it was a violation of journalistic ethics to categorize an opinion article as news. I received a reply quickly, but it mainly passed the buck to Forbes, saying:

“We are not responsible for the content contained within news articles or headlines from outside source providers. If you would like to report incorrect information provided in a news article from one of these outside source providers, please contact the publisher at www.forbes.com. “ I replied to Yahoo! News, suggesting that if someone there couldn’t make a decision about the matter, they might wish to change their name to Yahoo! News and Opinion so they would be covered in the future. I also sent a complaint to Forbes, but apparently Forbes is not very concerned as they have yet to reply. (1)

Forbes. The article in Forbes was written by James Taylor, who is listed as a fellow at the Heartland Institute. You may remember James Taylor, as he wrote a number of articles for the tobacco industry suggesting that secondhand smoke was not harmful. His article in Forbes was categorized as a news article since he claimed the information came from a “press release”. But when I clicked on the link to the “press release”, I ended up at a blog site run by Roger Pielke, a proverbial climate skeptic. There the supposed “news release” was titled: “Comments On The Paper ‘On the Misdiagnosis Of Surface Temperature Feedbacks From Variations In Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance’ By Spencer and Braswell 2011” . I suppose James Taylor considers Roger Pielke’s  comments as news, but not everyone feels that way. And, in case the reader missed the significance of  Pielke’s comments, underneath them he recommended a post on Roy Spencer’s blog site titled: ” Is Gore’s Missing Heat Really Hiding in the Deep Ocean?” Wait a minute! It was Spencer who wrote the original journal article and his blog article would indicate that Spencer might have a bias.

Spencer’s Paper: Spencer’s paper was published in a normally reputable but little-known journal, Remote Sensing . The article was listed as being peer-reviewed, but is unlikely that the article was peer-reviewed by anyone with an expertise in climate science. As soon as climate scientists had time to analyze the article, they found a number of errors. According to Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences, Texas A&M University: “He’s taken an incorrect model, he’s tweaked it to match observations, but the conclusions you get from that are not correct.” And, an analysis by climate scientists Trenberth and  Fasullo says in part:  ”The model has no realistic ocean, no El Niño, and no hydrological cycle, and it was tuned to give the result it gave. The bottom line is that there is NO merit whatsoever in this paper.” That about sums it up. *

Timeline: The article may have had little scientific merit,  but the misinformation pipeline that delivered it was certainly efficient.  In this case, a paper titled “On the Misdiagnosis Of Surface Temperature Feedbacks From Variations In Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance“, with significant errors, was published in Remote Sensing on July 25. It appeared as a “Comments on …”  article on Roger Pielke’s blog site on July 26, then passed through the Heartland Institute where it somehow became a “press release”. Along the way, it morphed into James Taylor’s article, New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism,  which appeared July 27 in Forbes, where it was now categorized as a news article. It then appeared on  July 28 on Yahoo!News and MSNBC’s Newsvine, again mis-categorized as news, with the title New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism – Yahoo! News.  Three days after publication, an erroneous and sensationalized version was on the major news network. Since then, a number of other blog sites and news sources have picked up the sensationalized version of the article and possibly millions of people have read it. Very few of those will read the climate scientist’s opinion of the article.The article will soon sink into obscurity,  but it will have accomplished it’s purpose, which was to spread doubt about climate change. And that’s why the public is confused.

Correcting the problem: The solution is for the news media to follow journalism’s ethics and to avoid bias. Media Bias  refers to censorship or propagandism on the part of particular news sources, where content is framed in the light of a preconceived agenda, such as favoring a station’s corporate economic interests, having a political slant, or sensationalism that tends to distort news to make it a better commercial “product.” The business community considers legislation that would reduce our carbon emissions to be antibusiness(2). Many business newspapers, magazines, and journals reflect that bias and even the leaders such as Investors Business Daily, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes are often biased toward the skeptic’s position. The bias shows up in the news stories selected, opinions mis-categorized as news, selecting a disproportionate number of skeptics articles for opinion pages, and writing or allowing sensational headlines on the opinion articles. Yes, the editors have complete control over what op-ed pieces and letters are published and they often write the headlines for opinion articles. An egregious example of this is a Wall street Journal article titled “Science Has Spoken, Global Warming Is a Myth”. The article turned out to be a hoax , but it came right before the Senate was to consider the Kyoto Treaty and may have influenced the Senate to reject ratification. While the editors might not have known that the article was based on flawed science, they certainly should have realized that two biochemists, who had little experience in climate science, could not speak for all science on such an important matter. 

Journalism’s Ethics: Unethical practices by new sources is a great disservice to its readers and, in this case, to the entire world. It should certainly be expected that  journalists and news media follow the Ethical code of The Society of Professional Journalists, who believe that it is the ethical duty of the journalist to:

Seek the Truth and Report it: Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.

Act Independently: Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know.

Be Accountable: Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.

It is a principle of professional ethics that anyone who practices the profession, whether a member of the professional organization or not, is bound by the code of ethics of the profession. In this case, the ethical code would apply to anyone who claims to reports the news, even bloggers.

(c) 2010 J.C. Moore

* Note added 9/3/2011:  In the latest issue of Remote Sensing, the editor, Dr. Wolfgang Wagner, resigned and issued a public apology for this article saying, “With this step I would also like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate sceptics have much exaggerated the paper’s conclusions in public statements.” “The problem is that comparable studies published by other authors have already been refuted in open discussions and to some extent also in the literature, a fact which was ignored by Spencer and Braswell in their paper and, unfortunately, not picked up by the reviewers.“

(1) It is a serious violation of journalism ethics to represent an opinion article such as this as a news story. Please let Yahoo know how you feel about this by reporting it as abuse at this  link >>  

 It may also be reported as an ethical violation to Forbes at readers@forbes.com .

(2) That is not really the case. The LA Times reported that a group of International investors, responsible for more than $15 trillion in assets, issued a global warming warning. (2) They called for the world’s nations, particularly the United States, to move decisively to combat climate change or face the possibility of economic disruptions even worse than the global recession of the last two years. They also pointed out that “The economic opportunities are enormous for nations with the foresight to seize them while the risks of inaction are potentially catastrophic.”

(c) 2010 J.C. Moore

Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Senator from Oklahoma who never met an oil company executive he didn’t like, often proclaims that “Global warming is a hoax.” He often uses his Senate position on the Environment and Public Works Committee to attack climate science and to promote the interests of oil companies. He is upset that the Polar bear was put on the threatened species list, which protects the Polar bear’s habitat. Recently, Senator Inhofe sent a letter to Mary Kendall, the acting inspector general at the U.S. Department of Interior, pushing for further investigation of Dr. Charles Monnett, who Sen. Inhofe blames for the Polar bear being put on the threatened species list, although that is not the case.  It is clear what Sen. Inhofe  was thinking when he proclaimed, “As a result, critical habitat for the Polar bear was designated, which added additional layers of onerous regulations to oil and gas development in 187,000 square miles of land in Alaska.”

The September 2004 issue of National Geographic has pictures of the Polar region taken in 1979 and 2003, which shows that over that period, the extent of the polar sea ice had declined 30%. Polar bears, whose hunting grounds are the sea ice, now have to swim many miles to reach the ice – when in the past they could simply walk onto it. Dr. Monnett, who is studying the Polar bear population, counted four Polar bears who had drowned because they were caught in a storm trying to swim to the sea ice to hunt. He reported that incident in a paper on the declining habitat of the Polar bear, which was published in a peer-reviewed journal. However his survey report only reported on the drowning of three bears, because only three were in the survey area. That is a reasonable explanation for the discrepancy, however, it led to a controversy about him inflating the number of bears in his research article.

Though that happened five years ago, the Interior Department has been put under political pressure to investigate the matter and they are doing so. As Sen. Inhofe wrote in his letter, “As ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), I am committed to ensuring that scientific integrity is upheld in the federal decision-making processes”. If he really means that, perhaps he should wait for the investigation, which is hopefully being done by unbiased scientists under proper procedures, to be completed before jumping to conclusions.

The Polar bear has become a symbol of all we may lose by failing to address our pollution problems adequately. The charges against Dr. Monnett are a politically motivated witch-hunt designed to punish scientists who disagree with Sen. Inhofe’s views on global warming. The polar bears were put on the threatened species list, not because of Dr. Monnett’s work, but because their habitat is clearly declining. As their habitat disappears, so will the Polar bear. It is something man should think about – as our habitat is deteriorating, also.

(c) 2011 J.C. Moore

Senator Jim Inhofe is wirting a book that he claims will disprove global warming. It will be interesting to see what research he cites and what might comprise such a proof. Last winter, after a blizzard, Sen. Jim Inhofe built an igloo for his grandchildren and claimed  that the record snowfall disproved global warming.  It will take more proof than that. Oklahoma is now experiencing a record drought and heat wave. Recently, Bruce Plante, a Tulsa World political cartoonist,  drew a cartoon of a hot, perspiring person asking at the library if Jim inhofe’s  book, disproving global warming, was out yet.  Dean Jones, a supporter of Inhofe, sent a letter to the Tulsa World entitled “Global Cooling” (TW, 7/20/2011), which takes issue with the cartoon and “global warming advocates”.  However, there are no advocates for global warming – but there are those who advocate  that we listen to climate scientists who say that global warming is causing the weather events that occur to be more extreme.(1)  Have you noticed any extreme weather lately?

 There is little evidence for Mr. Jones’ claim of “global cooling”.  NASA’s records of the Earth’s mean temperature show a clear  trend upward with the whole Earth now being about 1.2°F warmer than a century ago. (2) A warmer Earth means water evaporates faster and that the air can hold more moisture.  Areas that are normally dry, dry out faster. And, when conditions are right for precipitation, the combination of more energy and moisture in the air increases the chance of severe storms and flooding.

 If you don’t believe that the weather has become more extreme, just watch your insurance bill.  Insurance giants  Swiss Re and Munich Re, who insure other insurance companies, have assessed the risks and found that global warming has increased the risk of insurance losses.  If your insurance rates go up – blame those who have prevented effective action to mitigate global warming.

(1) http://jcmooreonline.com/2011/03/22/the-case-of-global-warming-and-extreme-weather/

(2) See the graph at http://jcmooreonline.com/2010/12/13/science-climate-change-and-the-greenhouse-effect/

(c) 2011  J.C. Moore

The EPA has been charged with reducing the pollutants released into the environment, but they are meeting opposition from power companies, politicians, and people who want cheap energy, though other people’s health and the environment may suffer the consequences . The EPA is accepting comments on the issue through May 23, 2011.  (1)

The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking a 95 percent reduction in emissions at three of Oklahoma’s coal-fired power plants owned by OG&E and AEP. (2) This has brought howls from the utility companies and from Oklahoma’s politicians. Utility companies claim that installing scrubbers or converting to natural gas will cost them billions of dollars and drive the rates for electricity up by 10 to 12%. The utility companies have defined the costs for the plant conversions or upgrades in the worst possible terms, without considering the long-term savings of conversion to natural gas or the impact on people’s health.

EPA.  Stopping the EPA has been put forth as a Conservative and a Republican cause, but it really is neither. President Richard Nixon created the EPA to protect the environment as the United States developed industrially. The Clean Air Act was passed not only to reduce smog in our cities, but to ensure that the air was kept pure and clean in our national parks and wilderness areas. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA has the right to limit sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, organic compounds, and particulates to ensure the quality of the air in our region. Limiting regional haze would have the added benefit of improving the health of people, wildlife, and plants in the region. Sulfur and nitrogen oxides are known to damage plants and those, along with small particulates, cause respiratory problems in people. Also, the particulates emitted contain mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, chromium, dioxins, and radioactive isotopes, which are all health hazards.

Regional problem. The emissions from Oklahoma plants do not remain in Oklahoma, and some of the haze in Oklahoma likely comes from surrounding states, particularly Texas, which has a large number of unregulated power plants. Emissions from a source may remain in the air for many weeks and travel for hundreds of miles. Although each state in the region might wish to address its own air pollution problems, it is a regional problem and must be addressed as such. Some of the states in the region are regulatory averse, and may lack the political will to act in the matter. For instance, a fly ash disposal plant at Bokoshe Oklahoma was allowed to operate for seven years while it violated Oklahoma statutes and apparently caused health problems and possibly deaths among Bokoshe residents.

Cost. The main objection to limiting emissions at the power plants is the cost. However, the power plants have operated for years without paying the true cost of energy production, which should include the cost of limiting their air pollution. It also appears that the companies have overstated the costs by as much as two or three times over the EPA estimates.  AEP reported $1.2 billion in profit last year and OG&E $292 million, so they can apparently afford to address the problem without passing all the costs to  customers.

Timetable. Three years would be a reasonable time for the power plants to come into compliance. It has been known for several decades that the emissions are damaging to the environment and health, yet the companies did not act. Also, the EPA had previously informed the companies that they were out of compliance, yet they have failed to come up with a satisfactory plan. They should have made a move toward compliance long ago, and further stalling should not be allowed.

Alternate plan. The alternate plan of converting the power plants to natural gas is certainly an acceptable plan. Methane produces about 2 1/2 times as much energy per unit of carbon dioxide as coal. And, switching to methane would also alleviate the problem of properly disposing of fly ash, bottom ash, and scrubber sludge. Those, and carbon emissions will necessarily be regulated in the future. Addressing the haze, the solid and liquid waste, and the carbon emissions piecemeal will certainly be less effective and more costly in the long run. If the companies should choose to convert the plants to methane, the added benefits would justify an increase in the timetable of up to five years.

(1) Comments may be submitted to r6air_okhaze@epa.gov or at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/oklahoma_coal_pollution/?r=7901&id=21282-3213732-Kunk_Zx

(2) http://jcmooreonline.com/2011/03/17/the-problem-with-coal-and-politicians/

(c) 2011 J.C. Moore

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Sen. James Inhofe (R –OK) is famous for his statement, “Global warming is a hoax”. The local Tulsa newspaper often carries letters giving the opposing viewpoint. For example, Corey Cohen, recently wrote, “Sen. Inhofe, please cease your effort to stop EPA’s ability to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The science of global warming and climate change is obvious and known. For example, excessive CO2 in the atmosphere absorbs heat reflected from the ground and traps that heat in the atmosphere, melting glaciers and ice and snow packs all around the planet. A given molecule of CO2 in the atmosphere has a life of approximately 100 years. The implications are fairly obvious: rising sea levels, loss of fresh water for humans and unpredictable growing seasons for Oklahoma farmers and their winter wheat crops due to atmospheric heating.” (1)

Mr. Jack Williams replied (2) by “pointing out a few facts”  to defend Senator Inhofe’s position:

“1. More than 31,000 scientists signed a petition opposing the concept of man-made global warming.

2. More than 100 top climate scientists have expressed their opposition.

3. A dozen recognized scientists from nine countries who initially were global-warming proponents have changed their opinion and now oppose it in light of recently published information.

4. Earth has undergone many cooling and warming periods during its history.

5. Carbon dioxide constitutes less than 0.1 percent of the atmosphere while water vapor, at least as effective a greenhouse gas as CO2, ranges from about 20 to 100 times its concentration, and is quite variable.

6. There has been no measurable increase in global temperatures during the past decade.

7. The polar bear population dramatically increased during the past decade, as has ice thickness on Antarctica.”

It’s always nice to get alleged facts in a numbered list, where it is possible to check them one by one.

Endorsements: Facts one, two and three, fall into  the category of endorsements, and as with many endorsement, it is not always clear how well qualified those who endorse the position are, or whether the numbers listed are significant. There are about 23 million graduates with degrees in science and engineering. If 31,000 scientists signed the Oregon Petition, that is about 0.13% of those – hardly significant. Even then, the petition appears to be a hoax. In 1989, the Petition was mailed to thousands of Bachelor of Science students. It was formatted to appear as if it came from the National Academy of Science, but the organization quickly responded that the information was misleading and “the petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy.”  The mailing collected 17,000 signatures and 14,000 have been added since. Most anyone could sign it, many who signed were misled, and many were not scientists at all, as it is possible to get BS degrees in fields such as journalism, sociology, education, philosophy… (3)

Endorsements that matter: All the major scientific organizations in the world have endorsed a statement such as that of the American Chemical Society,  ”Careful and comprehensive scientific assessments have clearly demonstrated that the Earth’s climate system is changing rapidly in response to growing atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases and absorbing aerosol particles. There is very little room for doubt that observed climate trends are due to human activities. The threats are serious and action is urgently needed to mitigate the risks of climate change.” (4) A recent CNN poll found that 97% of scientists who are actively engaged in research in climate science agree that global warming is caused by man. (5) There is clearly a consensus among scientists on the matter and those making policy would be wise to heed it.

Warming and Cooling: Point four is a fact, but it is not relevant to what is happening today. The Earth has in the past had many natural warming and cooling periods but the current warming trend is not part of those. In the  past, ice ages and warmer interglacial periods have occurred in roughly 100,000-year cycles. These are attributed to the Milankovitch cycles. These cycles are small variations in the eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth’s orbit that cause the amount of sunlight the Earth receives to increase and decrease in predictable cycles The cycles predict that a slow cooling trend, which began some 6,000 years ago, will continue for the next 23,000 years. The current warming trend is too rapid and in the wrong direction for the Milankovitch Cycles to be the cause. (6)

Greenhouse gases: Point five is also a fact, but it incorrectly downplays the role of  CO2  in determining the Earth’s temperature. In 1956, G.N. Plass calculated (7) that doubling the concentration of CO2 in the air would cause a 3 to 4 C increase in the Earth’s temperature. Many dismissed his work, as it seemed impossible that CO2, which made up only 0.03% of the air, could have such a large effect on temperature.   However, in 1997, J.T. Kiehl found (8) that, under clear sky conditions, CO2 accounted for 26% of the greenhouse effect – with water vapor accounting for most of the rest. More recent research (9) has confirmed their work, and CO2 has been labeled the “Control Knob” for the Earth’s temperature.  Recent research in the Journal of Climate, covering the last five ice ages, has experimentally confirmed Plass’ work. The Earth is warming because of the greenhouse gases we emit, and research finds the increase in CO2 is the main cause.

Temperature record: Fact six is based on the idea that 1998 was so hot, it couldn’t have been hotter since. However, NASA’s temperature record shows that 2005 and 2010 are tied for the warmest year on record and the last decade has been the hottest in recorded history – and the trend is yet upward (10). There have been attempts to discredit NASA’s temperature data by challenging the accuracy of the temperature recording stations, but a study of that issue by the American Geophysical Union found that claim to be false. (11) NASA has put men on the Moon and brought them home safely, and they certainly should be able to measure temperatures on the Earth correctly.

Polar Bears:  It’s true that the Polar bear population has increased, but not because the Polar ice is increasing. The bears were hunted nearly to extinction, and their population is increasing because restrictions were placed on hunting them from aircraft . Recently, Polar bears have been put on the threatened species list, not because of their numbers, but because their habitat is disappearing.  Satellite measurements of the Arctic sea ice have shown that both the volume and extent of the sea ice has decreased remarkably over the last 30 years. (12) Polar bears are uniquely adapted to live and hunt on the Arctic Sea ice. As it disappears, so will the Polar bears.

Claiming something as “fact” does not make it so. And, even facts can be misleading if the inferences drawn from them are in error.  If Senator Inhofe bases his position on facts such as those listed by Mr. Williams, it is easy to see why he incorrectly thinks global warming is a hoax.

(1)http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/article.aspx?subjectid=62&articleid=20110313_222_G2_CUTLIN933913

(2)http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/article.aspx?subjectid=62&articleid=20110403_62_G2_InhisM784632

(3) http://jcmooreonline.com/2010/01/29/the-oregon-petition-how-can-31000-scientists-be-wrong/

(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#General_science

(5) http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-19/world/eco.globalwarmingsurvey_1_global-warming-climate-science-human-activity

(6) http://jcmooreonline.com/2010/12/31/science-global-warming-and-the-ice-age-mystery/

(7) http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm#M_25_

(8) http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0477%281997%29078%3C0197:EAGMEB%3E2.0.CO;2

(9) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/356.abstract

(10) http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2010november/fig2.gif

(11)http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009JD013094.shtml

(12) http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/NSIDC-12-10.gif

(c) 2011 J.C. Moore

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“We know who the culprit is, we just can’t prove it – yet.”  Detective Dick Tracy

The Case. That statement could have been uttered by climate scientists. They know global warming is the cause of the more extreme weather events we are experiencing, but it is hard to prove it.  Global warming has increased the energy and moisture in the atmosphere, and that combination makes conditions ripe for severe storms and floods. Certainly, hurricanes occur and intensify over low-pressure areas fed by moisture and warmer oceans. To be accurate, however, climate scientists could only say, “When weather events occur, global warming is likely to make them more extreme.”  However, the case against global warming is growing stronger. A number of recent research papers have shown global warming is the cause of extreme weather events, and the business community, particularly insurers, are beginning to take notice. (1)

The Link. The vapor pressure of water is one of the most important factors in determining weather. Water will evaporate from the surface until the air above it reaches its saturated vapor pressure. The saturated vapor pressure depends only on the temperature, which makes temperature the determining factor controlling the amount of moisture that the air can hold. (2) If a mass of air saturated with moisture moves to higher altitudes or encounters a cold front and is cooled, the air becomes supersaturated, which leads to precipitation. Over the last century, the Earth’s average temperature has increased by about 0.8°C, which translates into an increase in the saturated vapor pressure of water of about 7%. When precipitation occurs, on the average, 7% more moisture is available. It is a reasonable conclusion that when it rains, it will rain more and when it snows, it will snow more. So strangely enough, global warming could actually lead to greater snowfall. However, it has been very difficult to prove, and certainly even more difficult to convince skeptics that that might be the case.

Floods. Two recent research papers have established a link between global warming, increased rainfall, and flooding. A recent paper in Nature (3) reported that the observed increase in rainfall in the Northern Hemisphere in the past 50 years and climate change are linked. The researchers analyzed the rainfall data in areas prone to flood and found that the rainfall has increased due to the warmer temperatures of the Earth. Their results “were based on a comparison of observed and multi-model simulated changes in extreme precipitation over the latter half of the twentieth century analyzed with an optimal fingerprinting technique.” They also found that the models seem to underestimate the observed increase in heavy precipitation with warming temperatures. Extreme precipitation in the future may be even more severe than now predicted.

The second paper, also published in Nature (4), has linked the increasing floods in England and Wales and global warming. The researchers generated several thousand climate model simulations of the autumn 2000 weather by using actual conditions and also by assuming conditions as they would have been had no greenhouse gas emissions or global warming occurred. They concluded that “the precise magnitude of the anthropogenic contribution remains uncertain, but in nine out of ten cases our model results indicate that twentieth-century anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions increased the risk of floods occurring in England and Wales in autumn 2000 by more than 20%, and in two out of three cases by more than 90%.

Rivers in the Sky. Normally, when an air mass saturated with water moves ashore and is forced upward, it  cools and precipitation falls until the clouds are no longer over-saturated. However, that is not the case for “rivers in the sky, weather patterns that carry a stream of air saturated with water into coastal regions  continually for days. These  “rivers in the sky”,  cause flooding rains in coastal and inland mountains causing untold costs in property damage and human lives. One such river produced more than 40 inches of rainfall in the mountains of southern California in only four days in early January 2005. It caused widespread flooding and massive mudslides such as the one in La Conchita, California, which took 10 lives. The researchers say these “rivers in the sky” will become more common as global temperatures rise since warmer air means that the atmosphere can hold more water vapor. That is, unless global warming changes the weather patterns that produce them. (5)

Droughts. The link between global warming and droughts has not been yet established by research. Areas that receive little moisture from the oceans would not benefit from the fact that the air can hold more water. Though higher temperatures mean that more water evaporates into the air, it also means that the air can hold more moisture before becoming saturated. Areas that normally experience droughts are much more likely to have less rainfall in the future. This past year has seen droughts in Russia, China, and South America that have limited the production of grain and increased the chances that some species may become extinct. The heat waves in Europe in 2003 and 2010, that caused widespread crop failure and wildfires, may have been the worst in 500 years. Certainly, more frequent and extensive droughts may occur in a warming world. (6)

The Smart Money. The widespread damage caused by weather events related to global warming has caught the attention of the business community, particularly those who pay out insurance claims or invest large sums of money. Insurance companies ranked 2010 among worst years ever for climate disasters. Climate change is the culprit in many of the catastrophic natural disasters in 2010, according to insurance company Munich Re, one of the largest global insurance carriers. It added that trends are pointing to more frequent and riskier events in the future. (7) Recently, a group of International investors, responsible for more than $15 trillion in assets, issued a global warming warning. (8) They called for the world’s nations, particularly the United States, to move decisively to combat climate change or face the possibility of economic disruptions even worse than the global recession of the last two years. They also pointed out that “The economic opportunities are enormous for nations with the foresight to seize them while the risks of inaction are potentially catastrophic.”

(1) http://www.smartplanet.com/business/blog/intelligent-energy/studies-prove-link-between-human-activity-and-extreme-weather-events/4835/

(2)  http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/kinetic/relhum.html#c3

(3) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v470/n7334/full/nature09763.html

(4) http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v470/n7334/full/nature09762.html

(5)  http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2529.htm

(6) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110318091141.htm

(7) http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=insurance-ranks-2010-worst-for-climate-disasters&page=2

(8)  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-climate-financiers-20101117,0,6204171.story

(C) 2011 J.C. Moore

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The EPA has been charged with reducing the pollutants released into the environment, but they are meeting opposition from power companies, politicians, and people who want cheap energy, though other people  and the environment may suffer the consequences.

The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking a 95 percent reduction in emissions at three of Oklahoma’s coal-fired power plants. This has brought howls from the utility companies and from Oklahoma’s politicians. Utility companies claim that installing scrubbers or converting to natural gas will cost them billions of dollars and drive the rates for electricity up by 10 to 12%. The utility companies have defined the costs for the plant conversions or upgrades in the worst possible terms, without considering the long-term savings.  Conversion to natural gas would eliminate the problem of  coal combustion products such as acidic gases, mercury vapor, fly ash, and bottom ash. Although coal is cheaper than other fuels, it delivers less energy per unit of CO2 produced. Coal  produces 314 kJ/mole while natural gas produces 890 kJ/mole, almost 3 times that of coal. Considering Oklahoma’s abundant supplies of natural gas, it would make sense for Oklahoma to begin switching power plants to natural gas.

The power companies and the politicians have tried to define the problem as the cost of the  “elimination of haze”, as if there were no other environmental damage done by burning coal. That is because the elimination of haze under the Clean Air Act is all the EPA is presently empowered to do. Coal is 65 to 95 % carbon. What about the rest? Coal contains small amounts of mercury, chromium, lead, cadmium, arsenic, sulfur, particulates, and radioactive isotopes. Man burns 6 billion tons of coal each year, releasing millions of tons of pollutants into the air and leaving several hundred million tons behind in the coal ash. Some pollutants eventually find their way into the water, the food chain, and into us. Oklahoma has adopted limits on fish consumption because of high levels of mercury. For comparison, mercury is 100 times as toxic as cyanide, arsenic is 20 times as toxic, and chromium(VI) is 4 times as toxic. These three are also are carcinogenic and accumulate in tissue. Even exposure below the allowed levels increases the chance of cancer over time. The small town of Bokoshe, Oklahoma is located near an unregulated fly ash disposal site. The incidence of cancer among the residents of the town is extraordinarily high, though the power company claims there is no link between that and their fly ash.

The sulfur and nitrogen oxides released by coal combustion harm plants and produce acid rain. A recent article headlined “Pecan growers say coal-fired plant killing trees” described the plight of orchards downwind from a power plant with inadequate pollution controls. One farmer said his pecan crop dropped over the years from 200,000 to 8,000 pounds. The combustion of coal  also releases 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year. Because  CO2 in 3water is an acidic, the oceans have become over 20% more acidic in the last century. That has led to the destruction of coral reefs and endangered crustaceans and the phytoplankton that convert CO2 to oxygen. Without phytoplankton, life in the oceans would be impossible. The concentration of CO2 in the air has increased 38% as well.  As a potent greenhouse gas, it is causing the Earth to warm, glaciers and polar ice to melt, and the climate to change in ways we will not always like. The Supreme Court, in Massachusetts v. EPA, ordered the EPA to make a determination as to whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant. The EPA has found, based on the best scientific evidence, that CO2 is an endangerment to public health and has moved forward to regulate it.

Oklahoma’s politicians, such as Sen. Jim Inhofe and  Congressman Dan Boren, are working on a solution- for the power companies benefit. They want to strip the  EPA of  its power to regulate pollution.  They also claim it is a states rights issue, and that the EPA has no business regulating Oklahoma industries. However, the pollution generated by Oklahoma’s power plants does not stay within its borders, nor is all the pollution in Oklahoma from Oklahoma sources. Much of it blows up from Texas, the state with the highest number of power plants out of compliance. Acidic gases released by coal combustion, and even mercury vapor, can travel for thousands of miles before being brought to Earth by precipitation, and much of the CO2 will stay in the air for centuries. Regulation of carbon emissions needs to be done on a national and even international level. It is a bad idea to focus on short term economic costs while ignoring the environmental costs, such as polluting the Earth and letting rural Oklahoma become a dumping ground for the power companies’ waste.

(C) 2011 J.C. Moore

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