The Resilient Earth: Science, Global Warming and the Fate of Humanity

by Simmons, Allen

  An expert in modeling complex systems, Tennekes scoffs at those who think that computer models which implicate CO2 levels as the primary control for Earth's climate can be trusted, or that trying to regulate the world's temperature by manipulating CO2 levels is a rational idea. In a newspaper op-ed piece, printed in the Amsterdam De Volkskrant on March 28, 2007, Professor Tennekes takes those who believe that CO2 can be used to control climate to task.

  “I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached. We cannot run the climate as we wish. That is fortunate, because a bad season for farmers may be a boon for the tourist industry, deteriorating conditions for French farmers may mean improving conditions for their Polish colleagues, what is good for winter wheat may make things worse for corn, and so on. We are not dealing with a machine, but with Nature herself, and she is not easily mocked.”440

  The limitations of computer models are well recognized by many of the scientists working on climate predictions. This includes scientists associated with the IPCC reports, such as Michael Oppenheimer, Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton University. Dr. Oppenheimer was a lead author and contributing author to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, and was a lead author or contributing author to various chapters of the Second and Third Assessment Reports of IPCC. Here are some comments taken from an article by Oppenheimer in Risk Analysis:

  “As with WAIS, the ice mass balance depends on the difference between the ice loss rate and ice accumulation, but the models have not predicted the current loss rate correctly, particularly at the GIS periphery. It is noteworthy that a local acceleration of GIS in response to surface melting that appears to lubricate the ice sheet base has been observed. This process is not incorporated in ice sheet models, and we have no idea how generally it might function over the ice sheet.”441

  The abbreviation WAIS stands for “Western Antarctic Ice Sheet” and GIS for “Greenland Ice Sheet.” Note that this comment concerns ice sheet models—only one component of building a comprehensive model for Earth's entire climate system. Even addressing a relatively simple sub-problem, the models used are incomplete, give incorrect answers, and the researchers have no idea how the missing factors would affect their results.

  Perhaps the best synopsis of climate modeling comes from a scientific outsider, Freeman Dyson, Professor of Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton:

  “My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.”442

  The IPCC Report Reexamined

  Computation is widely recognized as one of the three pillars of modern science, along with theory and experiment. For climate science, theory translates to understanding how Earth's climate system works, experiment is the collection of data from various sources, and computation is computer modeling. As we have seen, all three pillars of climate science are weak and wobbly.

  Here we see the limits of climate science: incomplete, subjective data are used to feed simplistic, unverifiable models in an attempt to make predictions about a complex system that is only partially understood. Climate science is simply too immature to be relied on for definitive predictions about future climate change. Despite widespread recognition of the pitfalls and limitations of modeling, the IPCC would ask us to base worldwide technological, environmental, economic and political policy on model predictions.

  In an issue of the Royal Society's journal, Philosophical Transactions, an article appeared that discussed the difference in Pascal's approach to statistics and the Bayesian approach. Pascal considered each statistical event, such as a coin toss, as independent of any previous events, while Bayes allowed prior events to influence subsequent ones. Scientists almost always use the statistically independent model, in order to avoid having bad assumptions bias their models. Unfortunately, including prior assumptions into climate models is impossible to avoid. By their nature, climate models contain a multitude of variables that are interrelated in complex ways—effectively, Bayesian assumptions. To quote from the Economist regarding this situation:

  “Climate models have hundreds of parameters that might somehow be related in this sort of way. To be sure you are seeing valid results rather than artifacts of the models, you need to take account of all the ways that can happen. That logistical nightmare is only now being addressed, and its practical consequences have yet to be worked out.”443

  The use of computer models has been passed off as science fact when it is actually a technique used when real observations and genuine understanding are not available. As fundamentally weak as the IPCC's methodology is, the press and the public are convinced that the facts have been established and consensus has been reached in the scientific community. What do scientists think about model-based climate science? Again quoting from Dr. Pilkey and Dr. Pilkey-Jarvis:

  “We believe that global change modelers fall into two categories. There are the true believers who take no prisoners, believe every word, every model prediction, and feel that criticism is unwarranted or even un-American. A much larger group is uncomfortably aware of the insurmountable nature of the complexities in global change models.”444

  Consensus? Hardly. Still, a continual parade of boffins appears before government agencies and the public urging action. On National Public Radio, on May 31, 2007, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin commented on the American space agency's role in fighting global warming:

  “I have no doubt that … a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take.”445

  In all, a thoughtful and measured reply to the host's question, “do you have any doubt that this is a problem that mankind has to wrestle with?” Before the day was out, Steven Edwards, writing on the Wired Magazine blog, asked, “Does this guy deserve his position as NASA's administrator?”446 We would guess that Edwards, a non-scientist, falls into the true believer, take no prisoners category.

  The subject has become so politicized that rational public debate is no longer possible. Battle lines are drawn, positions cast in concrete, and the charge is led by the IPCC. Bob Carter, a research geologist and Professor of Geology at James Cook University, Townsville, offers his opinion of the IPCC:

  “It's received advice from many excellent scientists and they're still involved with the IPCC, but it's not primarily a scientific body. In the end, it's a
political body with a life of its own and, as such, the advice to policy makers that the IPCC releases no longer gives primacy to scientific reasoning. It actually gives primacy to political advice.”447

  Here is the crux of the matter—political interests have taken immature and incomplete science, and inflated it into a global crisis. We need to be mindful of the environment. Mankind should eliminate excessive emissions of any type. But, we do not need to follow the tainted advice of bureaucrats and politicians who have turned scientific conjecture into a crusade in favor of their own opinions and a jihad against those whose ideas they dislike.

  Prophets of Doom

  “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed—and hence clamorous to be led to safety—by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

  — H. L. Mencken

  The main problem with translating the “science speak” of the IPCC reports into everyday language is that scientists are cautious by nature and not prone to making unequivocal, blanket predictions. You will never hear “by next Tuesday the ocean will rise 10 feet, three hurricanes will strike Florida, and the temperature in New York will be 123°F.” Instead you get long-term possibilities with the odds of them actually happening dependent on other events taking place, like an average temperature rise of so many degrees. The temperature rise is likewise dependent on still other events and also stated with “degrees of certainty,” meaning more probabilities. It is when the bureaucrats, government officials and news media get involved that probabilities become absolute predictions of disaster.

  Before proceeding, let us restate some findings of The Resilient Earth thus far:

  Earth is warming slowly—about 1.8°F (1°C) per century.

  The greenhouse effect is real and CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

  CO2 is much less potent than methane or NOx and is far less plentiful than the primary GHG, water vapor.

  Based on empirical data, carbon dioxide is probably responsible for only a quarter of the past century's temperature increase.

  The theory behind how Earth's climate functions is incomplete and incapable of explaining all observed climate variation.

  Climate history data are inherently inexact and are constantly being revised. Error margins for historical temperature measurements are of the same magnitude as the change observed over the past century.

  The IPCC's predictions of future temperature increase are not based on empirical data but rather on the output of complex computer models that are even less complete than scientists' theoretical understanding of Earth's climate.

  New theories explaining climate change are constantly being proposed, though they have been mostly ignored by main-stream climatologists.

  The IPCC is not the only scientific organization to make pronouncements regarding global climate change. In recent years, several major scientific bodies in the United States and around the world have issued similar statements. Such blanket statements tend to downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. Before examining global warming coverage in the non-scientific media, it is instructive to briefly consider the scientific literature.

  In 2004, Naomi Oreskes, a historian, published a study based on article abstracts of 928 papers published in refereed scientific journals. All the papers were published between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) citation database with the keywords “climate change.” The papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position.

  According to the study, 75% of the papers fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Authors might believe that current climate change is natural but, according to Oreskes, none of the papers argued that point. The study concluded, “this analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC.”448

  It should be noted that the definition of the “consensus” position used for this study does not require agreement that man is the primary cause of warming. It also does not require belief in or support for catastrophic global warming of the type so luridly reported in the media. This weakened version of the IPCC claims allowed the report to find higher levels of agreement than actually exists for the more radical IPCC conclusions. Even so, Oreskes' work seems to strongly reinforce the claim of consensus among scientists with regard to global warming. The study has been repeatedly cited, though some of its data are nearly 15 years old and its conclusions somewhat dated.

  Since the Oreskes' study, Klaus-Martin Schulte updated this research using more recent publications. Using the same ISI database and search terms as Oreskes, Schulte examined papers published from 2004 to February 2007. Of 528 total papers on climate change during this period, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the IPCC backed consensus position.

  If one considers “implicit” endorsement—accepting the consensus position without explicitly saying so—support for the IPCC position rises to 45%. The largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis, while 32 papers (6%) reject the IPCC's assertions outright. Of all papers published during this period, only a single one makes any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results. This does not meet the definition of “consensus.”

  The jury is still out on human-caused global warming, at least for the IPCC's version of it. Surveying the scientific literature cannot muster a majority, let alone consensus, supporting the IPCC's position. To quote Dr. Schulte, “If unanimity existed in the peer-reviewed literature between 1993 and 2003–which I have reason to doubt—it certainly no longer exists today.”449 It also bears repeating, even if consensus existed, it would not constitute scientific proof. Non-scientists who advocate the IPCC position unfailingly fall back on the “there is consensus” argument because they do not possess the technical knowledge to support their beliefs. Keeping this in mind, we present a survey of global warming as reported by the media, politicians and other non-scientists.

  The Media Reports on Global Warming

  The IPCC case for global warming and the predicted effects are fairly troubling, but the claims themselves are made in cautious language, befitting a report written by scientists and edited by bureaucrats. What is more alarming is the way this matter is reported in the press.

  Since science isn't usually front page stuff with newspapers and magazines, the advent of the global warming crisis has thrust a number of new voices forward and caused some of the established, mainstream reporters to bone up on their climate science. Scientists rarely make bold, solid predictions and are not practiced in the art of the sound bite. This leads to news interpreted, and made more exciting, by reporters and editors. Here are some examples:

  “The Planet NASA Needs to Explore — As momentum gathers to reinvigorate human space missions to the moon and Mars, we risk hurting ourselves, and Earth, in the long run. Our planet -- not the moon or Mars -- is under significant threat from the consequences of rapid climate change. Yet the changing NASA priorities will threaten exploration here at home.” Tony Haymet, Mark Abbott and Jim Luyten, Washington Post, 10 May, 2007.

  “Global Warming Expert Fears 'Refugee Crisis' — Within two or three decades, there could be one and a half billion people without enough water, according to a new report on the impacts of global warming.” Bill Blakemore, ABC News, 2 April, 2007.

  “6 Ex-Chiefs of E.P.A. Urge Action on Greenhouse Gases — The panel said that the Bush administration needs to act more aggressively to limit the emission of greenhouse gases linked to climate change.” Michael Janofsky, New York Times, 19 January, 2006.

  “About ten percent of the Earth's surface is covered by ice, most of that in the polar regions. But if enough of that ice melts, the seas will rise
dramatically and the results will be calamitous. Scientists are keeping a watchful eye on the largest concentrations of ice on the planet: Greenland and Antarctica... If this worst-case scenario should occur, in the coming centuries New York could be abandoned, its famous landmarks lost to the sea.” Tom Brokaw, NBC/Discovery Channel special on Global Warming, aired 16 July, 2006.

  “Angry environmentalists are denouncing the Bush administration for censoring the scientific evidence on global warming,” John Roberts, CBS News Chief White House Correspondent, 19 June 2003.

  “Fluorescent Bulbs Are Known to Zap Domestic Tranquillity — Energy-Savers a Turnoff for Wives. ...one of the dimly lighted truths of the global-warming era is that fluorescent bulbs still seem to be flunking out in most American homes.” Blaine Harden, Washington Post, 30 April, 2007.

  “The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.” New York Times, 29 January, 2006.

  “WASHINGTON (AP) -- A House committee launched an inquiry Tuesday over a former museum administrator's claim that the Smithsonian Institution toned down a climate change exhibit for fear of angering Congress and the Bush administration.” Brett Zongker, AP News, 22 May, 2007.