1
Global Schwarming!
Anthropogenic Global Warming debunked
I consider myself an environmentalist. I would like to see human
beings become better citizens and treat their planet with greater
respect. However, as a scientist, I am really deeply despondent
about the whole paradigm that has arisen around Al Gore’s
Inconvenient Truth road show. The reason is simply this: The
theory of catastrophic global warming he has publicised so
brilliantly is completely unfounded in fact.
The patterns of climate on Earth are directly correlated to Solar
activity and the flux of cosmic rays. This has been established in
numerous studies. On the other hand, not a single study has
produced a correlation between anthropogenic carbon emissions
and global temperature. Not one!
The fact of the matter is, the data argue against Gore’s hypothesis.
We have well described data patterns going back hundreds of
thousands of years, and the trends are absolutely clear: Global
warming is a fact. And so is global cooling! What we are talking
about is cycles in nature that have nothing to do with human
activities, and very, very little to do with atmospheric carbon.
A 2007 study at the University of Lund in Sweden revealed that the
Earth’s climate see-sawed over the last 10,000 years. But we can
go back much further than that – the Greenland Ice Cores show
2
normal cycles every 1,500 years going back hundreds of thousands
of years. 800,000 years ago, Greenland really was green – with a
climate very similar to that of present day Britain. Then it froze
again and the glaciers came back. That’s how nature works.
Climate manipulation through restriction of carbon emissions has
become a green, feel-good issue, and in reality it should be
nothing of the kind. People opposing carbon legislation are labelled
a “lunatic fringe”, despite that they are amongst the most
respectable and respected scientists on Earth.
We need to ask ourselves why we believe this – why do we believe
that AGW is true? Do we believe it because we have seen the data
and applied our minds to them? Or do we believe it because of the
very clever but scientifically unsubstantiated propaganda of a
dormant and restless American politician?
It is not science that is telling us that there is Anthropogenic Global
Warming, politicians are telling us that. Some scientists, for
reasons we can only speculate about, have aligned themselves with
politicians. But most have not.
This is one of the few instances in the history of science where
opposition to the paradigm is more popular than the paradigm
itself. Historically, it is usually a relative minority – the so-called
heretics – who oppose dogma held by a majority. This is different.
The sheer numbers of scientists against it is overwhelming. A last
year (2008), we saw 31,072 scientists, all with science degrees and
3
more than 9,000 with doctorates, sign a petition to voice their
disagreement with the idea of AGW.
Another group of 650 scientists presented a report to the US Senate
Committee on Environment rejecting man-made climate change
and warning against the dire socio-economic consequences of
carbon legislation.
Again, yet another group of 500 scientists presented findings that
completely debunk Gore’s manifesto. If we look at published
material, the situation is even more damning of the prophets of
climatic doom. An analysis of peer-reviewed papers in mainstream
journals show that less than half – only 38% — endorse AGW
even mildly, and if we narrow that down to publications by
professional climatologists, fully 95% reject AGW on some
grounds!
According to the most cited climatologist in the world, Dr Reid
Bryson, the global temperature started to show up as a gentle
increase from 1800 – before the industrial revolution – but that’s
because we were coming out of the mini-ice age, not because we
were putting more carbon in the air.
To summarise the issue in very simple terms – if it were not for
perfectly natural global warming, we would not have come out of
the last Ice Age – or any ice age before that. Global warming
helped us unfreeze many times in the past, long before humans
industrialised and drove motor cars.
4
Recently NASA had to admit that it had made a rather important
mistake – the much-hyped declaration that 1998 was the hottest
year in US history was an error – it is in fact 1934 that holds the
record. In his movie, Al Gore says, the ten hottest years ever
measured occurred in the last 14 years, and the hottest of all was
2005. This is patently false. In recent times, 6 out of the top 10
occurred between 1930 and 1950, and 2005 doesn’t feature
anywhere.
To add insult to injury, last year’s UN conference on climate
concluded that 2008 would be the coolest year of the decade. They
were right; the global average for 2008 came in at 14.3 degrees
Celsius, 0.14° less than the average for 2001 to 2007.
Another blatant untruth concerns the provocative image of a polar
bear drowning because it couldn’t find any ice. Gore suggests that
global warming is endangering the polar bear population. That is
simply not true. Polar bear populations are thriving everywhere
they are being studied, and the US Geologic Survey reports record
highs with population growths of around 25%.
Not a single case has been found of a polar bear drowning in the
way Gore suggests, and he was later forced to retract that assertion.
But the damage has been done and emotive misinformation
remains fixed in people’s minds.
The first thing we need to understand is that we are on a cooling
phase at the moment, not a warming phase. The last ten data points
show a distinct downward trend. We had a brief period of
5
warming, and we can now expect a roughly equal period of
cooling, in the way it has happened for as far back as we can
measure.
We see pockets of extremes in the climate, and concentrate on
anything hotter than usual. We conveniently ignore the
counterbalancing cooling events happening right now on the Earth
– we see ice retreating in the Arctic, but what about the ice build-
up in the Antarctic? It’s at record levels this year!
It’s simply thermal redistribution. The whole environment works
on the principal of counterbalancing hot and cold spots, warm
ocean currents and cool ocean currents working marvellously
together in nature. There is Yin and Yang in the climate.
We’ve just had the coolest summer in living memory in Durban –
yet in the Western Cape they’ve been toasted. Parts of Australia are
parched but Britain has a freezing winter. There are record
snowfalls in the USA.
By and large, the last few years have seen the Northern hemisphere
warm up on average, while the Southern Hemisphere cools down.
Two years ago, we saw record re-freezing in Antarctica – nearly
100,000 square kilometres of ice forming – per day!
In 2007, the city of Buenos Aires in Argentina had snow for the
first time since 1918. In 2008, South America had its coldest winter
ever observed. The oceans tend to smooth this North-South
difference, but overall, global sea surface temperatures have
6
dropped over the last ten years. The accepted global average
temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred
since 1998.
The really odd thing about this is that over an 11-year period,
atmospheric carbon has gone up by 55 ppm – that’s a 17% increase
– yet ground temperatures show no increase at all, and satellite
measurements of the atmosphere show a decrease in ambient
temperature over the same period. And the sea is getting colder!
What does that tell us about carbon emissions and global warming?
What exactly can we deduce from the data? These are the questions
we need to answer.
You know, the strange thing about this is that we have something
very important to thank ex-President George W Bush for. He did at
least one great service for human kind – he stopped Al Gore from
becoming President of the United States! That, we need to thank
him for.
Practically every argument Al Gore uses in his road show fails
when stacked up against the measurements. What he says about
atmospheric temperature, about hurricanes, about moulins in
Greenland, about Polar bears, and about rising sea levels and
sinking islands is all just WRONG!
An Inconvenient Truth is long on imagery and emotion, and short
on science. What we have, in reality, is a Convenient Untruth!
