Chill - The latest from the front on global warming
December 27, 2008
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
One of the bright spots in print journalism is Tom Knudson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the Sacramento Bee, who has had a brilliant ongoing series about how humanity has affected California’s splendid Sierra Nevada range. Since much of what he writes about the Sierra pertains to where I live in the Mount Shasta region, I’ve read his work with considerable interest. His latest deals with the effects of global warming on the Sierra. It’s a must-read.
Knudson concludes what we had already noticed here. The snowpack is diminishing, decade by decade. Quite often we get rain instead of snow here at the 3,500 foot level, and as a result we often have winters with less than five feet of snow. When I moved here nearly 20 years ago, the annual average was 14 feet a year. We’ve matched that only twice in twenty years.
Last year was a good example of how things have changed. By the end of January 2008, we had eleven feet of snow, and it was about seven feet deep on the ground. Temperatures for January were persistently cool, and even cold, but, it turned out, not even down to the historic averages for this place over the past 100 years. It just seemed that way after fifteen warm, wet winters. The year prior we had only gotten two feet of snow. But then, on February 1st, it was suddenly spring. The sun came out, temperatures jumped into the 50s, and we didn’t get a bit of precipitation after that. Our local ski park, which had a record 220 inches of base on February 1st, barely had enough snow to keep operating to the closing date of April 10th.
This winter, as Knudson mentions, the snow came late. The local ski park didn’t open until December 20th, and there were rocks poking up through the snow on the main board runs, which annoyed the boarders no end. Since then, the snow pack has increased enough to ensure rock-free runs but normally, the park is open by Thanksgiving. This year, they held the annual orientation meeting to new hires at the resort, surrounded by green grass waving in gentle breezes. It must have been pretty sad. Our local economy, already reeling from the Republican Economic Miracle, went right into the tank.
If the intermediate-range climate forecasts are right, things will get appreciably worse in the next year. This year has been cooler than what we are used to, due to the presence of a weak La Niña configuration in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation or ENSO. But the system is expected to oscillate (which is, um, what oscillations do) next summer and become a full-fledged El Niño, which means rampaging storms all along the west coast, and temperatures well above normal for the Northern Hemisphere. If that happens, then, among other things, many California ski resorts might not open at all, as the runs are deluged in rain and slush. And, rather than being stored in the snowpack, that water will all flow downhill, flooding the valleys and ensuring a drought the following summer.
Of course, wild and usually warm weather will afflict most of the world, especially North America, and Australia, already in the grip of a record drought, will see it intensify.
Will that slow down the Global Warming denialists? No, of course not. Coby Beck, who writes the excellent “All Things Ill-Considered” blog over at Science Blogs, came up with a list of 61 arguments against taking any action on global warming, most of which are thoughtfully propagated to Free Republic morons by the Petroleum and Coal industries.
The excuses break down generally into several categories. The first is the “it doesn’t exist” camp, which is getting a little tiny these days, except for the conspiracy lovers who believe that global warming is a conspiracy by tree huggers to keep Americans cold, wet, and shivering in caves. Enviros obviously love nature and hate humanity! It’s not clear why anyone would want people to be in caves (low-tech civilizations are notoriously dirtier than hi-tech ones), but few people knowledgeable about the effects of earth’s climate on the environment would dispute that elevated temperatures result in far more luxuriant and variegated life than cool climates produce. Evolution will be gonzo apeshit HAPPY with a hot, steamy climate. It’s humans – a “climax species”– who wouldn’t handle the transition well. It’s also unfair to say people concerned with global warming hate nature and love humanity, but it’s at least a hair closer to the truth.
Then there’s the “it does exist, but it’s natural or cyclical, or something.” For example, volcanoes. Volcanoes produce CO2 in copious amounts. However, there hasn’t been an increase in volcanic activity. Or it’s water vapor increasing. Warmer temperatures would result in increased evaporation, leading to increased water vapor, which would be a huge problem except it just precipitates back out that much faster, resulting in no significant change. Mars has global warming. It does, of course, which is why it rarely gets below 150 Kelvin there. If it didn’t have some CO2, it would have a climate similar to that of the Moon, only slightly cooler. Two hundred in the day, minus three hundred at night, Fahrenheit. If nothing else, Mars shows that CO2 is a global warming gas. But it hasn’t had any significant warm up in recent years.
The list goes on. And on. And on.
I just went over that list (printed below) and realized that I just encountered the sixty-second, sixty-third, and sixty-fourth excuses the other day.
One is a subset of the “volcanos are to blame” genre, and is a true exercise in crackpottery. According to the apologist who posted this, global warming is caused by massive volcanic eruptions all along the mid-Atlantic ridge. To be sure, there is a vast mountain range of volcanoes there, and some are erupting. But they aren’t doing so at any unusual level, and where the guy’s theory falls apart is that the water there isn’t carbonated, so no big CO2 release, and the surface temperatures, if anything, are slightly below historic averages, which suggests that the heat from these volcanoes, tens of thousands of feet under water, is managing to dodge around the Atlantic Ocean and heat the atmosphere! Maybe there’s a big grate in Newfoundland…
The other one is a bit more sly. It goes, “Don’t those global warming alarmists know that CO2 is utterly necessary to life on earth?”
Well, just about anyone who took fifth grade science knows that. Plants transpire CO2 and produce oxygen. CO2 even governs our breathing, since the brain monitors the levels in our own bodies and sends a little reminder to the hindbrain to tell the big dummy wearing the brain to take another breath. It does this every 10 seconds or so for up to 120 years. You exhale CO2 and inhale oxygen, an arrangement that keeps both you and your fern happy.
The pretense is that anyone wants to eliminate CO2 (other than by exhaling, that is). Or that the fact that a small amount being necessary justifies unlimited emissions. Salt is utterly necessary for human health, too. I don’t recommend going out and eating a pound of salt in order to be healthier. Nor would I eliminate all salt because it can raise blood pressure.
The final one is “It’s all about the polar bears.” There is a overheated (excuse the pun) ad on cable that shows a couple of disconsolate polar bears peering out over an open expanse of water from a tiny ice floe. The implication is that the bears, a mother and her half-grown cub – are in imminent danger of drowning. The bears are indisputably the most glamorous feature in the north, and they are in danger from the shortened hunting season the shifting climate brings.
But there are signs they’re adapting. A grizzly-polar bear mix has been verified in British Columbia, and there is evidence that polar bears are beginning to learn to hunt from shore. They aren’t a good reason to argue against CO2 emissions for the simple, sad reason that even if we magically reduced our CO2 emissions to 1900 levels tomorrow, the habitat the polar bears live in is finished. Global warming will continue for another 20 years no matter what. I hope the bears adapt, because I like the world a bit better with them in it, but I know that it’s dishonest to hang efforts to cut CO2 emissions on “saving the bears.” It’s already too late for that.
On that one, the denialists have a point, but it’s not a very strong one. Most of us realize that if CO2 reaches 500 ppm in our atmosphere, polar bears will be the least of our worries.
Forget the bears. Save the humans. Yes, even the morons who are paid or are paranoid enough to deny global warming.
Coby Beck of “All Things Ill-Considered”, now on Science Blogs, compiled a list of excuses profferred for why people shouldn’t believe in global warming, or why they shouldn’t worry about it because it
There is no real evidence of warming, just model predictions.Global Warming is nothing but an environmentalist hoax.
One warmest year on record is not global warming.
The surface temperature record is so full of assumptions and corrections that it only says what the scientists want.
In the 1970’s they said a new ice age was coming.
Global temperatures over just one hundred years doesn’t mean anything.
Glaciers have always grown and receded. A few glaciers receding today is not proof of Global Warming.
Climate scientist are trying to hide the dominant role of water vapor in Global Warming.
H2O is the only significant greenhouse gas.
There is no proof that CO2 is what is causing the temperature to go up.
The current warming is just a part of natural variations, humans have nothing to do with it.
It was even warmer during the Holocene Climatic Optimum
The Medieval Warm Period was just as warm as it is today.
All in all, a warmer climate sounds like a good thing.
Reducing fossil fuel usage is mass suicide.
Even if we fully implemented the Kyoto protocol it would have virtually no effect on the temperature even by mid 21st century.
Why do India and China get a free pass? That’s not fair, no wonder the US did not join.
But there is Global Warming on Mars, without any SUV’s or human influence at all.
It was very cold in Wagga Wagga today, this proves there is no Global Warming.
The ice core records show clearly that CO2 rising is an effect of rising temperatures, not a cause.
There is no consensus yet on the cause or even the reality of Global Warming.Ice sheets in the Antarctic are growing which proves Global Warming isn’t real.
Volcanoes emit way more CO2 than people, so emissions controls would be useless.
Global Warming is an illusion caused by the Urban Heat Island Effect.
We can’t even predict the weather next week, forget about 100 years from now!
Greenland used to be nice and warm and the Vikings lived there happily until the Little Ice Age.
Climate is a chaotic system and just like the stock market, forget about predicting where it will go.
The models are unproven and therefore unreliable.
Satellites are more reliable and they show cooling.
But the temperature dropped all through the 40’s and 50’s while CO2 rose, there must be something else going on.
The Null Hypothesis says the warming is natural.
Geological history is full of periods where CO2 was high and temperatures were low and vice versa.
The climate is always changing, no reason to think it is our fault.
Natural emissions of carbon are 30 times bigger than human emissions, so any reductions are useless.
CO2 is measured on Mauna Loa, which is an active volcano. That is why the levels are so high
Global Warming began about 20,000 years ago, humans have nothing to do with it.
Even if the ice caps melt, the water will go into the ground underneath.
CO2 has risen on its own before, no reason to assume it is our fault.
The Hockey Stick is broken, global warming theory falls apart.
No one knows how confident the models really are.
There is no historical precedent for CO2 causing warming, it is the opposite.
James Hansen is being an alarmist, just like before.
Position statements hide legitimate scientific debate.
Climate Models don’t even take cloud effects into consideration.
Global Warming stopped eight years ago!
Global warming is caused by the sun, of course.
The United States actually absorbs more CO2 than it emits.
Most of the glaciers are growing, just a few are shrinking.
If we don’t understand the past, how can we understand the present?
Global Dimming is stronger in the north, so how come it is not warming more in the south?
“Probably”, “likely”, “evidence suggests”. Even the scientist aren’t sure AGW is real!
Sea ice in the Antarctic is growing.
This alleged consensus is just because scientists are afraid to speak out.
Some locations are actually cooling, which shouldn’t happen if there is global warming.
The small observed warming shows that the climate models are overestimating CO2’s importance.
Sea level measurements in the Arctic Ocean show that it is falling, not rising!
Today’s warming is just a natural rebound from the Little Ice Age.
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