ClimateChange1

Universidade Fernando Pessoa

Porto, Portugal

Plate 1- Environmentalists and particularly the "Greens" are often considered as the new “Reds”, i.e., anti-American, anti-capitalist and anti-human development. They used “Global Warming” in their campaigns to gain more governmental control over the economy and individual activity. They never fight for less control or greater liberty (C. C. Horner, 2007 in "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism" Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington). As Claude Allègre said ("La science et la vie", 2008, Fayard): “ Ecology is, for them, just a pretext”. For them: “Giving society cheap, abundant energy (Nuclear Power)....., would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun” (Paul Ehrlich, 1978- An Ecologist’s perspective on Nuclear Power in Federation of American Scientists Public Issue Report). The opening remarks of J. Chirac (French president) in the 6th conference of parties to Kyoto (Hague, November 2000): “Kyoto is the first component of an authentic global governance”, are also highly significant. In the first part of these notes, we will try to summarize the main scientific arguments (refutable or testable conjectures) advanced by the “Sceptics” suggesting that “Global Warming” is just a natural “Climate Change” and probably independent of the amount of the atmospheric CO2.

Plate 2- Since the Earth’s birth, climate change is a reality. Historically speaking, warming and cooling periods are quite well known. From 2500 BC until today, six warming periods occurred. They correspond approximately to: (i) Pre-dynastic period of Ancient Egypt; (ii) Intermediate periods of Ancient Egypt; (iii) Roman Empire; (iv) Middle Age (ending with the falling of Constantinople, 1453); (v) 19th and 20th centuries and (vi) 21st century. The cooling periods correspond roughly to: (a) Nomadic time, (b) Greek Empire, (iii) Dark Ages, (iv) Little Ice Age and (v) End 20th century (this short cooling period, during which the mean global temperature fall roughly 1° C, was induced by Pinatubo volcanic explosion). These historical climate changes refute completely the a priori conjecture of the “Alarmists” on global warming. In fact, when they stated that the stability of the climate, predating the industrial revolution, was disrupted by the human influence, they know they are lying. As the historical climate falsify their dogmas, "Alarmists" do not like hear about, as pointed out by R. Giegengack (geologist at the University of Pennsylvania): “People come to me and say: Stop talking like this; you are hurting the cause” (quoted by C. Horner, 2007). Notice that cooling periods match with strong volcanic activity, starvation, famines and disease, and warming periods match with flourishing times and lower

Plate 3- “Alarmists” assume the climate was stable before the industrial revolution (late 18th, early 19th centuries). However, they should not forget that during the last millennium: (i) The Vikings emigrated and cultivated Greenland and Eastern Canada (Labrador), in the “Medieval Warm Period”, when the mean global temperature was ± 3° C higher than today and (ii) The majority of the European bodies of water were frozen during the “Little Ice Age”, when the mean global temperature was roughly ± 3° C lower than today. Wine was produced in England during the “Medieval Warm Period” and a lot of lithographs show children skating on a frozen Thames during the “Little Ice Age”. “Alarmists” (also known as “Believers”) reply that the "Sceptics" are eurocentrists: “Just because something happened in Europe does not mean it happened anywhere”. In fact, but surprisingly, these historical climate periods do not exist on the Northern Hemisphere Anomaly (°C) Chart of the IPCC’s 2001 report (we will see later why). Indeed, this fallacious curve (“Hockey Stick Curve”) gives the impression of a stable climate story until the beginning of the industrial era. Following the same non-scientific approach, i.e., accommodating the data to get the desired results, during the 2000 USA elections; the Clinton-Gore team twisted the “Hockey stick” erasing the “error” bars of the uncertainty. Such erroneous attitudes

Plate 4- Caption 5- For almost a century, as illustrated above, the media has alternated between global cooling and global warming scares. It is interesting to remember that in 1970, the environmentalist movement ("The watermelons" as they are known in Portugal - green skin, red pulp) which presently is absolutely certain of the upcoming catastrophes induced by global warming, began their Earth Day fetes in April 22 (Vladimir Ilych Lenin’s birthday) amid deep anxiety over global cooling (C. Horner, 2007). In fact, as pointed out by the French writer and philosopher J. F. Ravel ("Anti-Americanism", 2003, San Francisco: Encounter Books): “Western environmentalists.... are interested in the environment only insofar as they can exploit it as an issue to attack liberal (free) societies”. Such a conjecture is shared by Vaclav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic, who recently said : “Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution. It's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavour. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment” (http://newsbusters.org/node/10773).

Plate 5- Thirty years ago, the “Alarmists” needed to limit economic activity in order to prevent global cooling. Today, the same “Alarmists” used global warming to justify an increased governmental nannying and restrictions. In spite of their ideal - the mythical natural stability of climate - some of them know clearly that climate changes, and temperature risings are natural and practically human independent. They are must more interested in control us than control global warming. Recently, in Switzerland, an anti-American political green (27 years old “conseiller national” Bastian Girod, ZH), collected 147.000 signatures over swiss population (±7 500 000) and, is going to oblige the swiss people to vote in other to forbid the selling and buying of all cars weighting more than 2.2 tons, having a consumption higher than 10,5 litters per 100 km and without particle filters. Such political initiative of the Green Swiss Party, is not to avoid or control global warming. Probably, M. Bastian does known what global warming is. Such initiative just a tentative step toward the final target: remaking society through a supreme central state.

Plate 6- - Today, “Global Warming” is the panacea. Politicians used it to explain their failures. The media to sell more paper or to increase audience. The environmentalists use global warming to reduce individual freedom and create a supreme central state. For them, global warming is the cause of all disaster and calamities and man is the responsible since it is anthropogenic. In addition, “Alarmists” declare that there is a “consensus” (a political concept alien to the scientific method) in global warming: “ The entire global scientific community has a consensus on the question that human beings are responsible for the warming and President Bush has today again expressed personal doubts that is true” (Al Gore, USA Today, May 23, 2006). However, as all independent scientists know, in Science, by definition, consensus is an impossibility, as well suggested in Paul Valery writings. Any scientific theory or conjecture can be verified (in Latin versus means true). A hypothesis can be corroborated by observations and experiments, but it can never be verified. In Science truth does not exist. Observations can validate a hypothesis, but not verify it.

Plate 7- Al Gore has several reasons to faint. Indeed, in spite of the fact that a High Court judge (Justice Burton) who found nine scientific errors in Al Gore’s climate change film - An Inconvenient Truth -, at least thirty five additional big lies can be reported: (i) Sea level "rising 6 m"; (ii) Pacific islands "drowning"; (iii) Thermohaline circulation "stopping"; (iv) CO2 "driving temperature"; (v) Snows of Kilimanjaro "melting"; (vi) Lake Chad "drying up"; (vii) Hurricane Katrina "man made"; (viii) Polar bear "dying"; (ix) Coral reefs "bleaching"; (x) 100 ppmv of CO2 "melting mile-thick ice"; (xi) Hurricane Caterina "manmade"; (xii) Japanese typhoons "a new record"; (xiii) Hurricanes "getting stronger"; (xiv) Big storm insurance losses "increasing"; (xv) Mumbai "flooding"; (xvi) Severe tornadoes "more frequent"; (xvii) The sun "heats the Arctic ocean"; (xviii) Arctic "warming fastest"; (xix) Greenland ice sheet "unstable"; (xx) Himalayan glacial melt waters "failing"; (xxi) Peruvian glaciers "disappearing"; (xxii) Mountain glaciers worldwide "disappearing"; (xxiii) Sahara desert "drying"; (xxiv) West Antarctic ice sheet "unstable"; (xxv) Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves "breaking up; (xxvi) Larsen B Ice Shelf "broke up because of ”global warming”; (xxvii) Mosquitoes" climbing to higher altitudes"; (xxviii) Many tropical diseases "spread through “global warming”; (xxix) West Nile virus in the US "spread through global warming”; (xxx) Carbon dioxide is "pollution"; (xxxi) The European heat wave of 2003 "killed 35,000"; (xxxii) Pied flycatchers "cannot feed their young"; (xxxiii) Gore's bogus pictures and film footage; (xxxiv) The Thames Barrier "closing more frequently"; (xxxv) "No fact...in dispute by anybody."(http://scienceand-publicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html).

Plate 8- Global warming definition implies or suggests that before the 20th century the Earth’s surface temperature was stable. However, as we saw previously, such a conjecture seems to be not true, in spite of the fact that certain “Alarmists” argue that (i) the nomadic, (ii) roman and (iii) middle age warm periods took place just in the Northern Hemisphere and so such a periods can not be considered global. Actually, the conjecture that global warming exists just after the industrial revolution due mainly to human activity has become a dogma for the “Alarmists”. In fact, for the French Academy of Sciences global warming is just anthropogenic. However, for the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes) global warming is both, natural and anthropogenic. AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) was the only major scientific organization that rejected the finding of significant human influence on recent climate change. However, presently, AAPG is much more moderate and stated: "AAPG membership is divided on the degree of influence that anthropogenic CO2 has on recent and potential global temperature increases ... Certain climate simulation models predict that the warming trend will continue, as reported through NAS, AGU, AAAS and AMS. AAPG respects these scientific opinions but wants to add that the current climate warming projections could fall within well-documented natural variations in past climate and observed temperature data. These data do not necessarily support the maximum case scenarios forecast in some models.” Such a statement came after AAPG President announced: "Members have threatened to not renew their memberships ... if AAPG does not alter its position on global climate change ... And I have been told of members who already have resigned in previous years because of our current global climate change position. ... The current policy statement is not supported by a significant number of our members and prospective members” (Lee Billingsly, March 2007 in http://www.aapg.org/explorer/president/2007/03mar.cfm). In other words, pressures to accept dogmatic concepts and espouse such verificationistic methods exist even within the henchmen of the oil company, as geologists, are known by the environmentalist movements.

Plate 9- In spite of the fact that Galileo invented the thermometer in 16th century, coherent and more continuous temperature measures existed only just after 1850-1880. All temperature measures predating the discovery of the thermometer are indirect (proxies). The average global temperature is, generally, calculated on a grid of 5° x 5°. However, very often, a large number cells are missing. A credible global temperature requires representative averages, which are difficult to obtain taking into account that the quality and density of the measuring stations is unequal. All graphs showing average global temperatures are conjectural (subject to testing). This is true also for the above diagram, in which the datum is the mean global temperature between 1961- 1990. Such a datum choice is not innocent. As we will see later, a lot of measuring stations in cold areas became non operational after the falling of USSR (1990), which induced a sudden and sharp increasing of the average global temperature. Notwithstanding such a datum shift, the diagram suggests three cold periods: (i) Between 1855 and 1865; (ii) Between 1905 and 1915 and (iii) Between 1945 - 1980. These periods are quite well known particularly the last one. Actually, all media announced a global cooling (“The Big Freeze” Times Magazine, front page, January 1977). Notice the curves above, but particularly the five years average, suggest a cyclical fluctuation of the temperatures every 10-12 years. Knowing that the solar cycles have a time duration ranging between 10 and 12 years, such a correlation could also be a causation (see later).

Plate 10- Since the use of the thermometer, the temperature values are more reliable, but the measuring conditions are difficult to standardize and the precision is certainly lower than the published decimal values. Formerly, the measuring stations were located outside of the population agglomerations. However, the same stations are presently surrounded by houses and very often near the airports, i.e., near local heat sources. The temperature on land changes more than the temperature on sea (more energy is required to heat the air than water). The water temperature values measured on sea boats are usually affected by isolation problems and the correlations are quite controversial. On the other hand, the historic reconstitutions of the temperatures are many times property of its authors, who often refuse to give information on their origin and correlations. Different sources give recurrently temperature curves with 0.4° - 0.5° C differences. For certain, particularly for the “Alarmists”, climate change has become a religion and transparency is usually absent. The temperatures measured by the satellites are more reliable and coherent. They suggest a cooling of the stratosphere (the second major layer of the atmosphere lying above the troposphere and separated from it by the tropopause), which occupies the region of atmosphere from about 12 to 50 km. Although its lower boundary tends to be higher nearer the equator and lower nearer the poles. The “Alarmists” initially denied such a facts, since they partially refute the dogmatic conjecture that temperature depends mainly on the greenhouse effect.

Plate 11- This diagram strongly suggests the average global temperature observed since 1990 is mainly a function of the number of the measuring stations. For the period between 1901 and 1996, the large variations are in Arctic (http://www.warwickhughes.com/climate/ussr1.htm). The measurements were mainly performed during the winter when the airports are in activity and in Russia (mainly carry out in the gulags) and thus their values are quite uncertain. In fact, they suggest an increasing record in Spitzberg, while Iceland shows a cooling record. Apparently, for the period between 1976 and 1998, the density of the measuring stations seems better, particularly in Western Siberia. The temperature increase in the Arctic areas is more important than the tropical areas, but the cooling is more important, as suggested by the 1.5° C cooling of the Arctic Ocean between 1940 and 1970. So, the present temperature increase in the Arctic should astonish no one. Temperatures lower than 0°C represent around 20%, while temperatures lower than -20° C represent around 5%. As a result, one can question whether the polar temperatures can be considered as representative. The temperature distribution on the Earth during the period between 1947-2007 shows a peak at 23° C for temperatures ranging between -58° C and 33° C (http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/climate-change/ Quirk2007.pdf), subsequently, the concept of global average temperature is not too evident.

Plate 12- One of the major problems of the global warming theory is depicted on this plate: are the measured temperatures proposed by the IPCC and the Hadley Center, on which the global warming is based, reliable and correct? The “Sceptics” reproach that the large majority of the measured temperatures is disturbed by the proximity of buildings, roads and asphalt and other hot spots induced by the human activity. Another factor affecting the measurements is the maintenance of the measuring stations all around the world. Actually, it is essential to keep the external painting of the station white. It the paint blackens, it is evident that the temperature inside will be higher. Vincent Courtillot (2007) in a letter addressed to the French Academy of Sciences pointed out: (i) There are more people modelling the temperature than observing data; (ii) Defining a global average temperature, at the lower atmosphere, is a quite difficult endeavour and there are very few laboratories doing it; (iii) There are doubts on the validity of the temperature curve (since 1850) proposed by Jones (Jones et al., 1997 b and 2001), (iv) in Europe, we do not seen any increasing pattern between 1900 and 1980, on the contrary there is an exceptionally cold year in 1940 and a significant sharp jump (roughly 0.5°C) in 1985-1987, which so far we can not explain; (v) Since this sharp jump, i.e. 20 years ago, the tendency of the temperature curve is flat again. In the USA, where the temperature data is easier to average, during the last century, any cycle was observed. However, to better evaluate the centennial tendency, we need to wait few decades more.

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