This is a from a discussion on global warming and greenhouse effect that took place on Baen's Bar. The person I was responding to was a young man (college student if I recall clearly) who had taken the standard Greenpeace position that we were looking at Soylent Green and Waterworld if we didn't enact the Kyoto protocols. When I told him, effectively, that he was as full of manure as my horse, he said that I argued by assertion and didn't know what I was talking about.

So I gave him a few facts to ponder.

Global Warming

You said I argued by assertion. You are now required to read this entire document. At that point you will understand that my arguments are not assertion, I simply don't care to take you through a college class in separating propaganda from science. If you fail to read this entire document, and respond with facts to all the statements, then you are arguing by assertion.

Okay, the problem is that there are entangled statements associated with "global warming." One is glacial melting, the second is greenhouse effect and the third is actual "global warming." Along with this are "atmospheric modeling" and what politicians want the news media to report. (And what the news media wants to report.)

Greenhouse effect is a well proven phenomenon that states that if certain gasses are increased in an atmosphere, all other things remaining normal, sunlight sent through that atmosphere will differentially warm the atmosphere. What happens is that the ground absorbs infrared energy in one wavelength then it is released in a different wavelength. The latter wavelength finds certain "greenhouse gasses", including water vapor, opaque and is not lost to space. So you get heat hitting and dissipating more or less normally during the day but it gets trapped at night. (By the way, first point, greenhouse conditions, up to a point, are a benefit. They tend to warm winter nights and reduce crop loss/lengthen growing periods.)

That's greenhouse effect. The upper end of greenhouse effect is such conditions as occurred in the post-Permian period (name escapes me) when surface temperatures reached an estimated average of 115 degrees Fahrenheit (as opposed to something like 72 now.) It's a well-documented phenomenon and I have no problems with it as a theory. The problem I have is with how it is "pitched" under the present circumstances and to what effect it is changing world temperatures now or will in the foreseeable future.

There are multiple "models" of how the atmosphere is supposed to react to changing conditions. The reason that there are multiple models is that atmospheric science is truly...I won't say "in its infancy", the term is more "infantile." It knows almost nothing about its bases, it has many practitioners who won't admit that and it is totally dependent upon others (notably governments) for its nurturing and support. So it cries alot. One of it's big cries is "glooooobal waarrrrrminggggg..."

But when it makes that particular cry it has to admit that it really doesn't know what the hell it's doing. It's trying to figure that out, and for that I give the good scientists in the field credit, but it's not there yet. So when the governments come to it and say "tell us what the atmosphere will be doing in a hundred years", the scientists throw their bones and say "well, any of the following 256 items are equally likely." And that's not argument by assertion, that is right around the number of "models" that were released in the last "Report on Global Climate Change". The final "temperature change" models ranged from the "post-Permian" spike conditions, a change of fifteen degrees over the next fifty years, to damned near a global iceage (the latter of which is barely mentioned anywhere.) If that's not an admission that "we don't have a clue" I don't know what is.

By the way, the only way that the "we're all gonna die" models will work is to follow this pattern: Increased CO2 leads to increased evaporation. H2O (which when transparent is a greenhouse gas) starts a catastrophic chain reaction of evaporation and increased temperatures. Actual CO2 direct effects, if everyone in the world had American lifestyles, could only account for a two degree increase, which is unnoticeable. You have to get the run-away chain reaction and anything that serves to mitigate that chain reaction knocks the "dire" predictions on the head.

The politicians and the news media, however, don't tell you that. Remember the headlines? "Scientists Predict Dire Effects from Greenhouse" "Scientists State Kyoto Provisions "Key" to Future Survival." They didn't state anything of the sort. Politicians said that and a few "scientists" who were the model for the guy in Contact who goes around smoking cigars and cutting funding, but the majority of the scientists who actually prepared the report and did the studies roundly denounced the headlines.

Something that didn't make the headlines.

Now, lets take a look at what the models ignore shall we?

The first thing that the models take as a constant is solar output. They have to, until recently we had no way to measure it. But we're finding out, since lofting a solar measurement satellite, that solar output is anything but a constant. It varies across both the "type" of output (different areas of the EM band change constantly) and total output. There is no reason to consider old Sol "constant." And if you can't take that as a constant, all the models fall apart.

The second thing that they ignore is clouds. They take total water vapor as being a greenhouse gas as an absolute. In fact, depending not only upon the nature of the cloud but where it forms, clouds have different effects upon warming, all of them mitigating (reducing.) The only "greenhouse gas" condition that H2O can form is fully transparent water vapor; humidity before cloud formation, or clouds after darkness has fallen.

There are other variables that are popping up day by day to hammer their models. The models that screamed "END OF THE WORLD IN SIGHT" back in the 1980s used sulfur dioxide one way, but when those models failed to end the world (they showed that we should already be swimming) the scientists plugged sulfur dioxide in a different way and stated that cutbacks in sulfur dioxide emissions (you know, catalytic converters) were ALL THAT SAVED THE PLANET! Puhleeease. Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

Methane hydrates. If all the methane hydrates locked up on the ocean floor cut loose, we'd die fast from the temperature release. But...where do they come from? As it turns out, one of the places they come from is methane being caught in cold water currents and pulled out of the atmosphere. And the same thing happens to CO2. There is now a specific current in the South Pacific that pulls millions of tons of CO2 and methane out of the atmosphere every day. I recall the news reports when that one was found; the scientists sounded positively lugubrious. It knocked half their apocalyptic theories on the head. Because they also calculated that it wasn't at it's max transport and transport rate was dependent upon partial pressure of gasses. I'm not going to try to explain any of those terms, by the way.

Bicarbonate exchange is dependent upon the same and recent cores from the Bahamas show that bicarbonate exchange rates have increased. There's not an estimate of total input there, but it's high. Golly-gee, another place for CO2 to go.

Tree coverage: despite strip malls and suburbs, net tree coverage in the US is expanding. Trees take up CO2 then get turned into houses and newspapers and Baen books which lock the CO2 out of the air. Actually, net "greenage" on the ground, world wide, is expanding. And it's "better" greenage than, say, tropical rain forests. Rain forests are efficient recyclers; their net CO2 input or O2 output turns out to be nada compared to, say, a cornfield in Omaha.

For that matter, oceanic greenage may be expanding. That is uncertain yet (satellite data hadn't measured oceanic greenage) but the reaction to pollutants along shores has been to expand photosynthetic plants at the expense of, say, coral reefs (which are net CO2 emitters.) Less CO2 by golly.

When they can get a handle on any of those, I'll pay a bit more attention to the models. As long as they are "regressive." Regressive? What's that? If you take any but the most median current models, plug in changes in CO2 output worldwide and "back them up" in time, you end up with an iceage in anywhere from the 1700s to the 1500s. Now, the 1500s were a mini-iceage, more about that later, but they didn't have icesheets covering Paris . So the models don't work regressively. Ergo, they are crap. On to more crap.

Global Warming: What is global warming? Well, one would say a net change in temperature over the entire surface of the globe. How do you measure that? Hmmm... the best way would be to take temperature readings on every square inch of the globe, not only at the earth's surface but throughout the layers of the atmosphere with a track back through time as far as possible. Assuming, realistically, that you couldn't do that, you would want to have as many readings from all over the planet as you could, said readings as little "disturbed" as possible, so that you could account for the difference between "world spanning" temperature changes and local temperature changes caused by man. The latter do exist, they are called "heat islands" and are well known to anyone who has ever driven a motorcycle. As you come out of the woods around a built up area the temperature increases. But there's a real question how much effect heat islands can have on the whole world. You find that out by having a track of temperatures, going back in time, in random locations. Arguably, you should only take them in areas that are not effected by heat islands. But even if you're willing to leave them in, for a rigorous scientific survey you have to account for them and overall the temperatures have to be taken from the entire surface of the globe and they have to be random.

The latter is the key. Current "atmospheric scientists" take readings from a series of historically based surface temperature test points (weather stations including stuff like airports (big areas of concrete there) and news organizations) and map them, as an average, over time. And, VOILA!, temperatures across the globe are just SKYROCKETING! Why, the temperature in one of the oldest set of measurements has gone up FIFTEEN DEGREES!

Of course, that's Greenwich which up until a couple of decades ago could still be pleasantly categorized as a "rural village." It's now a small city. Small cities make much greater heat islands than rural villages. And the "voila" goes away quickly. Virtually every single temperature station is in or around a heat island. They were set up, over time, around towns and cities. Very few, less than ten percent, are in undisturbed locations and virtually none are at sea.

The trend of all of these, as an average, over time, is that there was a sharp spike in temperatures in the early 1900s, leading up through the 1940s, and then it leveled off. If you think about it, that was the real height of the change in the industrial revolution, when people started "living large" in the developed world. Oh, did I mention that the developed world had about ten times the number of measurement stations the undeveloped world did?

Recently, the government was forced under FOI to release world wide satellite temperature readings. Satellites meet many of the requirements for a rigorous scientific model. They measure continuously and in bands unrelated to human impact, so while they're not precisely "random" they are far more rigorous than depending on a series of temperature readings from Wichita, NYC, etc., and they covered far more area, and more precisely, over an unfortunately "short" span of time.

Satellite readings showed and overall change of -.05 degrees Celsius. That was well within statistical error of the system. In other words, almost total stability. And that includes, for a "global warming" perspective, heat island effects.

I'm taking up way too much time on this and have to get ready to go to Toni's wedding. A few points:

I was studying to be a marine biologist. We debated this stuff endlessly. I can back up every single assertion in here with data from one text or another. And I know what I'm talking about.

Look up the term "Medieval Climate Maximum." In the 1300s, Northern Europe recorded temperatures that scientists assert would cause world wide catastrophic flooding now. But many of the areas that they assert would be flooded were dry.

Last point: the "median" model, which is no more nor less "valid" than the apocalyptic ones according to the "scientists", shows a change of maybe one degree, worldwide, over the next century. That's not going to affect anyone. I can get into discussions of subsidence and the difficulty of measuring what the "true" world wide water level is at another time. But they recently found a marker left by Captain Cook in New Zealand on a bit of rock for which they think they have a subsidence rate. It shows about a two inch change, which is consistent with "steady state" theory of climatic temperature increases related to the Renaissance Temperature Event. (Look it up.)

If you still think that "global warming" is an effect of my new SUV or that India and China should get a break if it is, I have a bridge in brooklyn I'd like to sell you.

Edited adendum: The world has been recovering, slowly, from a mini-iceage (which was one of the things that precipitated the Renaissance, by the way) for centuries. We are still short of the temperatures during what is called the Medieval Warm Period and we are closer to leveling off than spiking. We may never reach the pleasant condition of vineyards in Nova Scotia (which was how Lief Ericson found it which was why he called it Vinland ) and long warm summers in Scaninavia. Those were the conditions in the 13th century and the slow temperature increase along with warmer winter nights was a strong cause of various changes that took place during that period.

Be that as it may, the median forecasts for temperature change are far from the doom preaching in which the news media, liberal politicians (mostly foreign) and certain (in my opinion unethical) scientists specialize. In my opinion the unethical scientists use fearmongering to increase and maintain their funding, the politicians use it as a pure political tool to bamboozle the easily propagandized and the news media use it because “World ends in ten years!” is a better headline than “World temperatures remain pretty good but it would be nice if it was a tad warmer.”

Does this mean the world won't end in fifteen years? No. Old Sol could choose to flicker, one heap big asteroid could hit, some hotspot could find a thin place in the crust and cause another Deccan Rift or we could all be killed by biological warfare. What it means is that there is a difference between propaganda and science (or propaganda and any truth.) And it's important for people living in a democracy to be able to separate the fact from the fantasy.

Take care and don't let the bastards fool you.

John Ringo
August, 02