THE CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING

Over the past two years I have researched many articles and digested a lot of data concerning 'global warming'. My degree in Atmospheric Physics as well as several years service as a weather forecaster gave me, I believe, the credentials to have formed valid opinions on the subject. I have reached a point where I am now able to offer a set of new and original conclusions in regard to that topic. Below are my conclusions and they are followed by the trail of events and evidence I followed as well as the reasons for my conclusions. All sources referenced are from previous posts to this site.

(1) Anthropogenic (man caused) global warming did likely occur from around 1970 until approximately 1995.
(2) It was not caused by CO2.
(3) The extreme greens and backers of the CO2 theory were correct in some of their observations and conclusions.
(4) The groups denying that man was a cause of global warming or that global warming did not even occur were correct in many of their positions.
(5) Both groups were seriously in error in many of their assumptions and conclusions.
(6) Earth and life as we know it on this planet was seriously threatened.
(7) There is no longer a serious threat from global warming.

Over the last couple of years I have grappled with the whole concept of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming' and the almost religious cult following it has generated. The cult aspect turned me off and made me want to disbelieve them. It smacked too much of trendy 'group think' and not at all like 'science think'. Science has been used as an excuse for the group think, but, I thought, was an after thought, giving the whole movement some degree of respectability. I kept having images of other fads which flourished and then vanished into history. I thought that this 'global warming' hysteria was very similar.

Remember 'hula hoops'? Everybody had to have one. Remember 'Madras' cloth? It was imported from India and was so cheap the colors ran when it was washed and then gradually faded away after several washings. Who would buy that? Well, every kid had to have a Madras shirt or blouse. Equally absurd were the pet rocks which sold by the millions worldwide. Then each of these fads faded away and are today not even footnotes of history.

However, when it could have passed away this whole global warming thing became bigger than life. No matter what new laws were passed, no matter what environmental efforts were made, no matter when science began to show improvements in the air, the extreme greens wanted more and more. As I studied this topic it became apparent to me that I needed to get rid of distractions relating to the subject and attempt to focus on the core facts of the subject. That was very difficult.

The larger the topic grew the more fringe elements were attracted. These people (scientists would be too kind of a term for them) issued statements based on opinion and not studies. Not science. Not facts. Each, it seemed, merely wanted their fifteen minutes of fame, wanted to be in print, wanted to be 'on the air'. And the media gave exposure to folks whose opinions were based on myths and lies, not science. Some of their ideas were so bizarre that it was actually fun to ridicule them and I did so on my website. Other of their ideas were scary and still are. I label all of these as distractions. A few examples are:

(1) Parks and green areas are bad for the planet.
(2) Dogs should no longer be kept as pets. It would be better to eat them than to keep them as pets.
(3) Osama bin Laden joins the greens in condemning pollution.
(4) Rawanda Pachouri, head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published a novel where the heros and heroines worried about climate change while having numerous steamy sexual encounters.
(5) Greens pervert nursey rhymes to scare children into believeing in global warming.
On top of the ridiculous ideas and solutions put forth by self serving individuals there were other distractions. These might not be as easy to classify as distractions since many of them have some substance. However, they sure made it easier to dispute global warming. They certainly provided ammunition for those opposed to the extreme greens.
(1) October 2008 was highly publicized as the 'warmest October ever on the planet'. It was soon discovered that Russia, lacking proper funding for temperature measurements, had merely 'recycled' the data for September and used the same readings for October, forever distorting that year's planetary temperature readings.
(2) Inspection of 1,062 US weather stations showed major flaws in the location of temperature measuring devices, thus distorting temperature readings. These errors had been going on for decades and had seriously 'poisoned' the temperature data.
(3) After discovering numerous flaws in recent studies of temperatures Britain recommended a 'do over' of all climate data.
(4) As I had realized early on, NASA's graph of historical temperatures was seriously flawed.
(5) As other hopped on the instrument placement band wagon many other errors in temperature measurements surfaced from around the world.

Just when it appeared that it could get no more bizarre and flawed as an issue of science certain extreme greens began to blame a whole checklist of items on global warming.
(1) Frogs were dying in South America due to global warming. When examined more closely it turned out that the frogs were dying due to a fungus tracked in on the shoes of scientists who were there to study the frogs. The green scientists themselves had nearly driven the frogs to extinction.
(2) The coast of North Carolina is sinking and will flood due to global warming. There was no mention that the portion of the coast under scrutiny had been sinking for hundreds of years.
(3) Outflows from rivers into the ocean had declined over the last one hundred years due to global warming. No mention was made of the thousands of dams and reservoirs installed during that time, impounding water and preventing it from flowing freely to the ocean. There was no mention of the millions of new uses of the water to prevent it from returning to the ocean via the rivers. There was no mention of an additional two hundred million people relying on the water for usage daily.
(4) The Atlantic Ocean is warming due to global warming. Later a study revealed that it was warming due to less air borne dust from Africa as well as less volcanic emissions, not CO2 emissions of man.
(5) NASA scientist admits that many greens are using global warming as a boogy man to bring attention to a variety of non-related issues.
(6) US head of climate group accused of distorting flooding data in an attempt to support global warming. He even reportedly made up floods which never occurred.
(7) Polar bears were put on a crisis list as in danger of extinction. This despite the fact that there were 12,000 of them when global warming supposedly started and they now number 25,000.(8) No one should eat beef since when cattle eat their food they pass greenhouse gases.
(9) Legislation was passed mandating the use of Ethanol mixed with gasoline in order to reduce gasoline usage and thus decrease carbon emissions.
(10) Greens suddenly advocated the elimination of Ethanol production. It seems that the clearing of forests in order to provide more farmland for corn was more destructive than the gasoline was.

Then Climategate hit and things became really muddled. Discrepencies in the IPCC Report on Climate Change were brought to the public eye. This was important because leaders from around the world's governments were running around willy nilly, promulgating new laws and regulations based upon the information in that faulty report.
(1) UN admits false statements regarding Himalayan glaciers.
(2) UN admits false statements regarding Amazon rain forests.
(3) India withdraws from UN climate group citing too many discrepencies in the UN data and reports.
(4) Dutch cite new errors in the IPCC Report on Climate Change.

How could anyone have faith in anything related to man caused global warming in light of the above? Who knew what to think, what to believe? Apparently no one It has recently become apparent that there is no consensus on man as a cause of global warming and, in fact, no consensus on whether it even has occurred.
(1) 30,000 scientists sign a petition disavowing man as a cause of global warming.
(2) The founder of the Weather Channel produces a video denying that man was ever a cause of global warming, and additionally, that there has no been any global warming.
(3) Two major university studies show that of all television weather forecasters only a minority believe that global warming has even occurred.

Once Climategate came into the public eye there were more distractions. It seemed the whole green anthropogenic global warming idea was bogus. Its proponents seemed to be in disarray and on the run, many in hiding. Some of the headlines were too good to pass up and I posted them with a sense of glee. Again, however, even though I never bought the whole idea of CO2 as a cause of warming and could not find any real evidence of recent warming, these were, in my mind, distractions from the real issue.
(1) Hollywood moves to take back Gore's Oscar.
(2) Head of global warming research center resigns in disgrace.
(3) Court rules Gore documentary contains many errors and may not be shown in British schools.
(4) Gore apologizes for mis-quoting scientist.
(5) Climategate scientist Phil Jones considers suicide after emails made public.
(6) Green scientist admits data disorganized.
(7) Yvo DeBoer, top UN climate official resigns.
(8) Gore publically ridiculed at Apple shareholder meeting.
The list goes on and on. However, even though it felt good to read these headlines they all were and are distractions from the key issue: Is there recent global warming caused by Mankind?

As I wrote my posts to this site I always had in the back of my mind "What if they are right and I am wrong?" The downside of being wrong would be terrible. Also the downside effects of their having been wrong, yet allowed to turn the world upside down, were also terrible to consider. As a true scientist and student of the scientific method it's always healthy to critically review your own thoughts. Better yet is to have someone independent to review your work and critique your thinking. This part of the scientific method had been sadly lacking in the new religion of global warming. A report would be issued and then repeated and used as a source without ever having undergone the 'peer' review process. The greens reached conclusions and then sought data to support their beliefs, not the other way around. A true scientist would do research, crunch the data, and then follow where the data led. Worse yet they took public positions and then stood by them with no proof. Was I guilty of the same thing? I had formed intuitive conclusions in my mind that the greens were likely wrong and then sought data to support my intuition. Guilty!

A new horrible thought then came to me. What if despite the revelations of Climategate, despite bogus 'studies', despite erroneous conclusions, they were still right by accident? I then came to the conclusion that there were still, despite Climategate, three major unresolved issues here:
(1) Had there been warming since 1970 as the greens alleged?
(2) If there had been warming was it the result of normal climate cycles or was it caused by Mankind?
(3) If there had been significant warming and it continued today will it be harmful to Mankind?

If there had been significant warming sun spot activity seemed to be the likely culprit, not CO2. Especially so since the period of record warmth in the thirties. It was much too soon for another period of record warmth. I felt at an instinctual level that the numbers presented as gospel by Gore and his acolytes wre simply wrong. However, I kept having a nagging voice in the back of my mind asking me "What if you're wrong and their conclusions are correct in spite of all the sloppy data and in spite of all the hype?

When Climategate came along I felt vindicated that, as many have said, "The whole thing is a hoax." I happily linked to articles and new studies which showed the greens had gone overboard, that they had been too zealous and in many cases deliberately misleading. Many of these articles and studies confirmed conclusions I had posted to this site over one year ago. Part of my thinking had been that these people should be punished no matter how well intentioned they were. Hiding data, manipulating data, and issuing sloppy reports were all abhorrent. And... they were to be used to overthrow society as we know it and to change the world, destroying civilization in the process. Luckily none had asked for forgiveness so that was never an issue. Instead they avowed their intentions to forge ahead. As a scientist and as a professional Meteorologist myself I hoped that I had not allowed my personal feelings to get in the way of actual reasoning. That thought gave rise to the rest of this article and to my ultimate conclusions as to the actuality of Anthropogenic Global Warming.

First, as I said above, I doubted at an intuitive level that global warming was really occurring or at least that the reports of warming had been overblown. I graphed out all time record high and record low temperatures in the United States and the results were very clear. The decade of the thirties was when a maiximum of warmer temperatures occurred, and overwhelmingly so. Since that time the distribution of new records were pretty normal. In fact there had been more new all time record lows than there were new record highs since the thirties. Since 1940 there have been fourteen new all time record highs versus twenty six new all time record lows. More than half of all the all time record low temperatures have occurred during the period of so called warming. How could it have possible gotten hotter over all? I don't believe it has. That is a pretty 'macro' type of analysis but we should look at 'macro' trends when examining a global issue. All time record high and low temperatures pretty well define the extremes.

Also, it's pretty easy to get caught up in too many numbers and to not be able to see the forest for the trees. In addition to my background in Meteorology I also have degrees in Mathematics and Accounting. I understand all too well that the more numbers you have involved in an issue the easier it is to distort conclusions relating to those numbers.

Another problem is that there are too many other factors which have affected temperature readings in weather stations over the years since 1880. One is the encroahment of civilization around the weather stations or the 'heat island' effect. How do you ever measure that and take it out of your analysis? You can't do it with any degree of accuracy. The best you can do is to say that temperature readings from 1880 until, say, 2000 are, or should have been, gradually climbing higher due to heat island effect. How much? I would guess at least one to two degrees fahrenheit during the last forty years or so since cities have literally exploded in growth. Well, that's as much as global warming is supposed to have been. So... is it all heat island effect? Maybe. What about all of that asphalt which has been paved on roads and parking lots since 1900? That has to increase average temperatures somewhat. How much? One half of a degree? Again, I don't know and neither does anyone else since there have been no credible studies of the matter. Even if the whole of these two are one half degree increase it certainly explains any warming better than CO2. CO2 simply does not work as a significant cause of global warming.

Greens have kept complaining that man generated CO2 is responsible for global warming. I have a lot of trouble with this for several reasons. First, CO2 is produced in great volume in nature. One large volcanic eruption can produce more CO2 in a few days than Mankind could in a month. And... there are volcanic eruptions going on all the time at the Earth's surface as well as out of sight in our oceans. Further, CO2 is reviled as a greenhouse gas but is necessary for the growth of every green plant on Earth. Further CO2 is not the most plentiful greenhouse gas produced by Nature, water vapor is. However, CO2 is still plentiful in the larger scheme of things. As I said I identified several problems with the theory of CO2 as the villian in any warming, and it is just a theory, not a proven fact. Here are some of the warning signs I noticed along the way:
(1) A study by the University of Bristol, of Climategate fame, reported that there has been no increase in CO2 over the last 100 years. Wow! Hear that? One of the centers of man caused global warming thought admits there has been no increase in CO2. That in itself, if true, blows their theory out of the water.
(2) Many other studies show that CO2 does not preceed warming but occurs after the warming. It follows by decades.
(3) A report by David Evans, the scientist responsible for the accounting and monitoring of Austaria's compliance with the Kyoto Accords, flatly states that his research shows that there is no atmospheric signature for a buildup of CO2 . This signature would have been, in layman's terms, the smoking gun for global warming caused by CO2. Before he got the job he was a global warming zealot and that's why he wanted the job. Now he believes that CO2 has nothing to do with any warming.
(4) A new report shows that soil releases CO2, another very natural source.
Additionally, the atmosphere has been dealing with CO2 increases and declines forever. The ice core samples and other methodology has proven this beyond a reasonable doubt. A self regulating mechanism is in place on our planet. When CO2 is present green plants remove it from the air. Plankton absorbs it also. Both keep carbon to grow on and release the oxygen molecules. They rely on carbon to grow. When plant life is sparse or absent CO2 will increase. When there is less CO2 plants simply do not grow as well. When there is less CO2 plant life suffers and CO2 begins to increase. As it increases plants begin to flourish until a balance is reached. If all CO2 were removed from the atmosphere a new ice age would set in. If there is too much it does tend to warm the planet but plants then enter exposive growth cycles and begin to scrub it from the air before catastrophic heating can occur.

Has it been hotter than it is now in recent history? Yes. Ron Jones of Climategate disgrace even admitted that it was warmer in the Medievel Warm Period. If it was hotter then (by several degrees by the way) how did Mankind not only survive but flourish? Surely the so called 'tipping point' was reached then and every one survived. The permafrost had to have melted then and released methane. Why didn't their world end when that happened as the alarmist would have us to believe?

By the way. Methane presents another area of debate. Some recent reports indicate that methane has been released from previously frozen lake beds in Siberia for well over one hundred years in large quantities and may be the cause of any current warming. Methane is supposedly another green house gas. How does it form?
(1) Green plants grow and as they do they take in CO2 and release oxygen, keeping the carbon necessary for their growth.
(2) The plants die after completing their life cycles.
(3) Their leaves and other residue fall to the ground and decay making soil.
(4) Some percentage falls into lakes or is covered with water in other ways.
(5) These decay more slowly.
(6) In warmer climes they release swamp gas (methane) into the air. In colder climes they produce methane which is trapped under ice or in debris at the bottom of the lake or trapped in permafrost.
(7) At some point in Earth's natural heating and cooling cycles the methane is released into the air and if spotted by Greens it causes panic.
I believe that methane, as naturally produced, is another distraction in the whole argument of global warming. If the plant debris is trapped under water and late frozen it infers that it was formed in warmer times and frozen later on. The ice could not and did not exist at the time the plants formed, lived and died. The permafrost or ice had to come later. The Earth survived before the ice came and will survive after it is gone.

If there is no significant warming then why have the polar ice caps been melting? It has been most noticable in the Arctic but there has been some significant melting in the Antarctic also. However, in the Antarctic there were at least corresponding increases of ice in other parts of that continent. If there was true global warming why did it get warmer in some places and colder in others? Makes no sense. There has to be some explanation other than global warming. I posted my idea at the time that underwater volcanic activity could be causing the sea ice melt in the Arctic and that is still reasonable. If so then the melting of some areas of ice in Antarctica and increases in other areas has to have been some sort of localized phenomenon. Not a global event as global warming implies by definition. Why did I continue to think the ice melt was not caused by global warming? There were/are simply too many conflicting reports by too many well intentioned and intelligent people, especially concerning the Antarctic. Amid hysterical reports about sea ice melt were the following contradictions:
(1) Antarctic icebergs today are normal for the continent.
(2) Antarctic sea ice grows, April 18, 2009.
(3) Anarctic sea ice grows, February 9, 2009.
(4) New study on Antarctice sea ice dispels some hysteria.
If there was global warming why was it seemingly concentrated around the Polar regions?

Reports kept coming in which seemed to indicate that there is currently no global warming. Not just from the United States but from around the world. While warming was supposedly occurring many cold temperature records were falling. Headlines included the following:
(1) Temperature records falling like snow, 2009.
(2) May-June 2009: Temperatures well below normal all around the world.
(3) Record lows continue to pile up in 2009.
(4) Coastal Carolina has the tenth coldest Winter on record from late 2009 until Spring 2010. The mid-Western US had a very cold Winter with the record coolness extending all the way down to the Gulf Coast area. The entire Southeastern US had a very cold Winter for the same time period.
(5) Finally, Phil Jones admits to the BBC that there has been no global warming for fifteen years.

However, in the short run it's hard for me to get too excited about any cold weather records or even record warm records such as were set in April 2010 on the entire East Coast of the US. In that warm spell over 1,000 high temperature records were broken for certain dates at East Coast weather stations. Why not get excited? That's a lot of records. Well, there are 1,219 weather reporting stations in the United States. There are 365 days in most years. That gives us, each and every year, an opportunity for 444,935 new daily high temperature records and 444,935 new record low temperatures. I say it's hard to get excited about 1,000 new records for a couple of reasons:
(1) That number is immaterial in comparison to the overall opportunity for 444,935 new records.
(2) Records have been kept in the US for only 130 years or so. All existing records were set in that time period. That is a very short time in terms of climate trends or climate change.
Basically it's 'business as usual' in the atmosphere. It is a statistical certainty that some records, both hot and cold, will be broken each year. That's one reason that I think that all time record highs and lows are a better measure in this area.

Some greens keep saying that temperatures have risen steadily since the 1970s. I keep reading reports from various green groups that satellite data showed significant warming during the seventies, eighties and nineties. Satellite data first came into the public arena in the seventies. Since I have not believed that there has been any significant warming I concluded in a recent post that the satellite data must be faulty. In fact, NASA released, shortly after my post, a statement that they have no reliable temperature data from satellites for the surface of the Earth. Since we all live on the surface and that's where our lives go on I'll take that as confirmation of my post.

However, what if I took Ron Jones' statement that there has been no significant warming since 1995 (fifteen years) as truth? And also accept his statement that warming did start in the early seventies. Why would he misrepresent the trend in the period before 1995? He was already embarrassed about the whole thing and had come clean in interviews with the BBC. What if his statements were true and there had been warming from 1970 until 1995? What could have caused that? Little had changed. If it had been caused by CO2 it should have continued.

Why were some of the effects and patterns so funky and inconsistant? Sea ice melting in the Arctic at the same time that there were sixteen all time low temperatures in the lower forty eight states versus only nine all time record highs. The whole pattern did not make sense. What was happening in the Arctic and to a lesser and more sporadic degree in Antarctica? Could it be that only a part of the planet was warming? Only the poles in particular. If so, what had caused it?

That is when I decided to stop thinking about it for a while and to finish an article I had promised on Ozone. I was going to title it 'The Ozone Myth' because there are many common misconceptions about ozone. Ozone is oxygen molecules in a different configuration of three molecules instead of the two which we breath. I was reminded that the whole topic of the ozone layer had been a hot subject in the seventies and then the furor faded away. What had happened and why? I remembered something about a hole in the ozone over Australia and the dangers of ultraviolet radiation that it presented. However, that would not explain the warmer temperatures over the Arctic and portions of the Antarctic. Or could it?

Science became aware of the danger from this hole in the ozone layer in the early seventies. In the 1980s there had been worldwide agreement to gradually phase out Chloro Fluoro Carbons (CFCs). These chemicals were destroying the ozone layer. The chlorine molecules gobbled up the ozone molecules. However, the further I read the more I was able to discover what a threat this had been. In 1995 the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to a genius by the name of Dr. Sherwood Rowland. His work showed how sensitive the ozone layer was to CFCs. The next year CFCs were immediately banned worldwide. Click here for the report of Dr Rowland and its conclusions. Before panicking at the wording of the opening, note that the report was written in 1995 based on data available in 1994.

It was almost too late. There were actually two holes in the ozone layer. One smaller hole moved back and forth from Australia to Antarctica and then back again based upon the seasons. The other was over the Arctic. This one was huge, over nine million square miles. Click here for an image of the Antarctic hole in 2006 as well as two images of the Arctic hole comparing 1984 with 1997. By 1997 it had healed to a large degree and infrared imaging showed the Arctic had cooled significantly since 1984. Oddly the CFCs in the atmosphere had migrated to both poles and were in greatest concentrations there than anywhere else.

Most ozone, 90%, is concentrated high up in the air, near the edge of space. It is produced in several ways. In nature ozone is created by lightening discharges. Industrially it is a pollutant and by product of some manufacturing processes. It is poisonous to man when at the surface. Ozone is, however, lifted into the upper atmosphere by the very thunderstorms which produce most of it. It shelters Earth in the sense that it filters out ultraviolet radiation (UV).

NASA has said that without the ozone layer life as we know it could not exist on Earth. (Click here for the NASA report.) UV is harmfull on many fronts:
(1) UV causes skin cancer.
(2) UV rays inflict eye damage.
(3) UV rays harm crops.
(4) UV rays kill plankton. This is important because scientist are now worried about dead zones in the oceans where there is no oxygen and no plankton. It follows that if excessive UV radiation were to occurr it would kill the plankton which produces oxygen from CO2.
(5) In lasers UV rays generate so much heat that they actually char paper.

Could this be the smoking gun for global warming? It perfectly explains the entire ice melt in the Arctic. It explains the periods when it has been warmer in the Northern regions than farther South. It also explains the erratic ice melt in Antarctica since the hole in the ozone layer there moved back and forth.

Is there sufficient UV radiation to significantly heat the Arctic and the Antarctic? Absolutely. Infrared radition accounts for around 49% of heating in our atmosphere. The other 51% comes from visible light and its companion UV rays. There was, thankfully, no general weakening of the ozone layer. The CFCs had accumulated at the poles where no one lives. To me 'Intelligent Design' is not a theory but rather a fact. This last just confirms the perfect design of our planet.

I believe that the holes in the ozone layer caused whatever heating there was and that its effects were centered around the polar regions. Of course much of this warmer than normal air did recirculate into southern climes. I also believe that the danger is nearly past. Scientists at the time of its discovery estimated that it would take until 2050 for the ozone layer to return to pre-1970 levels. They also had estimated that it would take a few decades for the ozone layer to stabilize and to begin to recover. Planet Earth should be into recovery mode today. We all owe Dr Rowland and his associates for literally saving this planet from certain ruin.

The theory I have just presented explains all of the inconsistencies which bothered me about the greens' whole argument as to global warming. It fits all of the facts. It also explains that some of the greens were partly right and that they just attributed the wrong cause. I am not now admitting that there was global warming. I simply don't know and neither does anyone else due to the garbled data available to us. If anyone can ever untangle the effects of sun spot increases and decreases, the effect of heat islands on temperature measurements, and also the faulty placement of temperature measuring instruments, maybe they will decide that there had been warming from the seventies to the mid-nineties as Dr Jones insists. Or... maybe they will find that with all of those artificial bias removed that it was a little cooler than it had been. That's still my bet.

Copyright 2010 by Tal Leverett

POSTSCRIPT
On April 21st a new book, "The Great Global Warming Blunder", was released by Roy Spencer, Ph. D., a former NASA scientist and climatologist. He refers to an article by two other scientists from Boulder, CO, Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo, whose research shows that more solar energy is being retained by the Earth than was formerly true. i.e. They measured the incoming radiation and measured what was lost back into space and there was a net deficit. Something was causing more radiation to be retained by the Earth than was previously the case. The interesting point here is that the radiation "lost" or missing is Ultraviolet (UV) radiation. The whole green argument rests on the absorption of infrared radiation, not UV, as the cause of global warming. CO2 only traps infrared radiation. There was no net gain in infrared radiation. This meshes perfectly with my conclusions as presented above. The ozone layer holes are allowing more incoming UV radiation to reach Earth and that is the cause of global warming. Dr Spencer mentions that the increase in UV reaching the Earth is likely caused by a recent drop of 1% in cloud cover. I applaud him for his efforts to come to a correct conclusion as well as his pointing out this serious flaw in the CO2 debacle.