Top 10 global warming myths exposed

A local NZ monthly community newspaper published an opinion piece by one "Green blogger" Thomas Everth, known to frequent this blog, on global warming. He was kind enough to take a crack at me in dispatches and a reader brought it to my attention. I'll ignore Thomas' cheap jibes and instead concentrate on his opening gambit. This is what I've asked the newspaper to consider publishing in reply.

In a blatant effort to mislead and scare your readers, Green blogger Thomas Everth makes more errors in the first 200 words of his recent global warming diatribe than I have made in my last three books totalling around 400,000 words.

Let's look at them, shall we?

1. "One would think that in the face of: visibly vanishing Arctic ice Caps…"

In fact, after hitting a record low extent in 2007 caused mainly by wind patterns blowing ice into warmer waters, Arctic sea ice has grown significantly in coverage since 2007, even exceeding the 30 year average it is measured against. "Visibly vanishing"? I don't think so.

1. "…the break up of huge Antarctic ice shelves,"
   

Actually, the "huge" ice shelves amount to less than a fraction of one percent of Antarctica's area, and they're in an area hit by warmer ocean currents than the rest of the ice continent. Furthermore, a string of recent scientific studies show the area has been even warmer in the past one thousand years than it currently is, naturally. Hardly the stuff of nightmares.  

1. "…methane bubbling melting permafrost,"
   

This is one of the favourite scare stories of Everth and some others, particularly those who frequent the local Chicken Little website Hot Topic, run by a South Island truffle grower. I was therefore amused when NIWA recently rubbished the idea of a major threat from methane hydrates. They had to rubbish it, because scientific data suggests the methane stores are actually highly stable. The permafrost was 30% warmer in the 1930s than it is now (naturally, again), but we did not all vanish in a methane explosion.

1. "…vanishing glaciers,"

As the US National Science Foundation and others have well documented, glaciers and ice sheets have much longer response times (thermal lag) to warming or cooling than you'd think. Big glaciers, for example, can take up to a thousand years to show serious effects from a warmer climate, and big ice sheets can take up to tens of thousands of years, according to the US NSF (details in the book Air Con). All of which means that the melting we are seeing now is a delayed reaction to warming that took place between a hundred and a thousand years ago. I would remind readers that the warming that took place back then was entirely natural, as the knights of old were not driving SUVs.

[Addendum: Seeing as Hot Topic keep misconstruing this, a little elaboration on response time might be useful. A recent report on the Himalayan glaciers states this:

"The report highlights that glaciers are complex and that terminus fluctuations are the result of complex processes, with a time lag in response."

And this:

" The discussion appears to assume that under the same warming rate the terminus retreat rate should be constant. This is incorrect."

And this:

"The estimates of the response time of Indian glaciers are incorrect. The response times for sub-tropical glaciers lie in the time frame of decades to a century, depending among others on the size of the glacier. (The suggested response times of 6000 and 15 000 years may have some relevance for large ice sheets such as the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, but not for mountain glaciers)

And this:

"The response time is the time taken to reach a new steady state after climatic perturbation, in other words, the time taken until the snout reaches its new position in the new climatic situation. The immediate changes in snout position reflect the reaction time, the time taken to see any change in a glacier in response to a perturbation. The reaction time for small glaciers may be as short as a few years, longer for larger glaciers. The report attempts to compare the terminus fluctuation with contemporary meteorological data year-for-year over a period of ten years. This contradicts both the assumption in the report that response times are of the order of millennia, and also fails to take into account any lag time at all.

"The report also attempts to use average glacial speed as a measure of glacial response time. The time taken by ice deposited in the accumulation area to reach the snout indicates the average speed. For the Gara glacier, as an example, this is suggested to be 300 years, giving an average speed of 10 m per year. But this is not a direct indicator of response time and even less of reaction time."

The point I was making in Air Con and here is that glaciers do not melt on a dime, they take a long time in many cases. Renowden has tried to claim that NZ's Tasman has reacted rapidly in the last couple of decades to AGW, whereas in his ignorance he overlooks the long response time the Tasman has to 150 or more years of warming. The rapid change of the last two decades was built on the slower change already eating away at the glacier.

1. "…heat waves,"
   

Everth conveniently forgets to include the balancing factor for heatwaves: cold spells. As many of your readers are now aware, the Northern Hemisphere has been hit by another brutal icy winter, even bigger than last year's record breaker. In December alone nearly 900 snowfall records in US towns and cities were broken or tied, and temperatures were 15 degrees below average in some areas. As a matter of factual record, more people die from the cold than in heat waves.

1. "…record bush fires"
   

Your correspondent refers to the Australian bush fires, but readers of Air Con who've seen the chapter on those fires will recall that Australian temperatures are not fuelled by CO2 but by hot seasonal winds blown in from the central desert. (same problem in California and vulnerable parts of the US) It is a matter of factual record, again, that last summer's 'record' temperatures were no different to those measured in the great fire of 1851 – a blaze ten times larger than the 2009 killer fires in Victoria. The death toll in Victoria, incidentally, was far higher than 1851 because of a daft resource management bylaw introduced by Green councillors that prevented homeowners from cutting down vegetation close to their homes. Hence, when the blazes hit, houses burnt to the ground.

1. "…the last decade being the hottest on record ever,"
   

Sounds impressive, except that technically 'ever' means only in the past 30 years, which is how long we've had satellite coverage of the planet. So really what Thomas is saying is that the last decade was the hottest of the last three decades. But as he didn't tell you, there's been no statistically significant warming at all over the past ten years, which is why one of the world's top climate scientists, Kevin Trenberth got so hot under the collar in the Climategate emails where he wrote:

"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't".

Green blogger and lobbyist Thomas Everth says one thing, climate scientist says, admittedly through gritted teeth, something quite different in implication.

1. "…new records for ocean temperatures broken in 2009,"

Well, there have been big lows in the past 24 months compared with the past couple of decades as well, so on balance, not such a big deal. As Thomas would be the first to acknowledge, short term fluctuations are not hugely meaningful. The only reason ocean temperatures were higher this year was because of the naturally occurring El Nino. Much more detail on this topic can be found in Air Con.

 

1. "…ocean acidity increasing fast"
   

Not technically true either. The oceans are alkaline. What is happening is a tiny decline in alkalinity as the result of higher CO2 levels, but there is not actually enough surplus CO2 around at present to physically turn the oceans acid. What is probably much more significant, however, is a new peer reviewed study in the journal Science which shows overfishing could be a far bigger reason for declining alkalinity in the oceans.

That's because the study found up to 45% of the alkaline substance calcium carbonate in the oceans is actually produced by fish, which was not previously known, and when we take away the fish by excess fishing, we lower the alkalinity of the oceans.

"They have discovered that fish contribute a significant fraction of the oceans' calcium carbonate production," reported the study authors, "which affects the delicate pH balance of seawater. The study gives a conservative estimate of three to 15 percent of marine calcium carbonate being produced by fish, but the researchers believe it could be up to three times higher."

In other words, like the sinking islands example above, humans may indeed be hurting the oceans, but because of overfishing, not because of rising CO2 emissions.

1. "With CO2 concentrations shooting up to pass 400ppm soon, we have entered a territory of Earth's atmospheric composition not seen for millions of years – CO2 having stayed at or below 280 ppm during those millions of years."
   

Er, not strictly true either. Recent studies have found global warming scientists 'cherry picked' only the CO2 readings from the past that suited their low 280ppm starting point. In fact, readings over the last 200 years suggest CO2 levels have averaged around 335ppm, and as high as 500ppm in some areas. Why is this significant? Because if you choose a low starting point, say 280, and you can show we've risen to 380 today, then that's a big rise in CO2 levels. But if the starting point was really 335, then the increase is nowhere near as big, and that would be "inconvenient" for the human impact on global warming argument that Thomas is running.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all in favour of greener technology and less harmful waste and pollution. But don't get fooled into believing CO2 is the problem. The emissions trading scheme will make multinational fat cats extremely wealthy, and Green lobbyists who are investing in those industries will benefit financially as well. But it will do nothing to change the climate, and nothing to clean up rivers and streams or the land generally.

Comments

[BammBamm]

Perhaps TE would like to spend some time in Russia this summer.

The big cold is there - now.

Magadan perhaps? People there tend to think of Siberia as a the civilised 'mainland'.

[David White]

All your points are numbered "1." (Good points though.)

[Andrew W]

"Green blogger Thomas Everth makes more errors in the first 200 words of his recent global warming diatribe than I have made in my last three books totalling around 400,000 words."

"All your points are numbered "1.""

Well that's 9 errors without even reading it! ;-)

[Ian Wishart]

Yeah, I blame Typepad and Microsoft Word... :)

[Fletch]

To add to the bad winter weather enveloping Europe and the US, Beijing is having it's coldest winter in 60 years, and Seoul it's worst in 70 years.

The snowfall, which began about 1 a.m. (1600 GMT Sunday), was the worst since Korea began conducting meteorological surveys in 1937 and continued through the afternoon, the state weather agency said.

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Severe cold weather warnings were in effect for central and northern China late Sunday, as heavy snowfall disrupted air and vehicle traffic in the nation's capital, forcing massive school closures amid frigid temperatures that were forecast to last until mid-week

Temperatures were forecast to fall to minus 16 degrees Celsius (minus three degrees Fahrenheit) in the nation's capital on Monday and Tuesday, the lowest in about half a century, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

I'm sorry, but really, you have to be an idiot to believe in global warming.

Links: http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1104ap_as_asia_storms.html

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-braces-for-coldest-temperatures-in-decades-2010-01-04?reflink=MW_news_stmp

[Account Deleted]

Winter season exists very short in BKK while other provinces in the North and NE are cold in some certain periods of time. Alternately, warming weather existed. We can expect to face more variations, tropical winds/storms and turbulent weather in this year.

[peter]

Fletch

Easy to say that those who believe in global warming are idiots.

What about those who remain Roman Catholics in light of the many revelations of an abusive culture - worse it seems in Ireland than the US?

And from what country did many of our Roman Catholic clergy immigrate?

Makes you think!

[ZenTiger]

Most of the abuse has been conducted by males too. Are you hankering for a sex change operation because of what other males have done?

[Shane Ponting]

Peter you aren't the same without your trademark signoff.

[Thomas Everth]

Choice! Ian is reading the Coromandel Town Chronicle.
Here is the full article:
http://tinyurl.com/ycm2z8r

I spare myself from wasting my time arguing Ians points 1 to 1 as I would encourage the readers to do their own research on the matter.

I have added another article here, which perhaps also has to do with the general matter off all of this here:

http://tinyurl.com/yeonyp2

[Neil]

Just saying that global warming does not exist and citing various facts does not make it go away. Watching worldwide changes in bird migrations, growing seasons, rainfall patterns and insect population changes demonstrate a problem. The question is what to do to mitigate the effects which appear to be pointing to a disaster for humanity in the not to distant future.

[AcidComments]

"Just saying that global warming does not exist and citing various facts does not make it go away. Watching worldwide changes in bird migrations, growing seasons, rainfall patterns and insect population changes demonstrate a problem"

Nothing we can do about it. CO2 isn't the main cause and never was.

BTW: Birds migrated south unseasonally early along with some animals hibernating unseasonally early in many parts of the NH this year. Because they weren't stupid they knew the NH was in for a bitter cold winter. Unlike the stupid idiot, charaltan frauds and liars that are so myopic with AGW/CC they keep forecasting and given Mild Winter Climate outlooks.

[Fletch]

What acid said - even if there IS global warming, and birds and insects are doing weird things, that doesn't make it CO2, and it certainly doesn't make and warming man-made.

[Fletch]

ps, the 'ocean acidity' is bollocks anyway -

It seems that sea life thrives on warmer water and increased carbon dioxide. On June 2nd, 2009 a groundbreaking new research paper was announced by zoologists that indicated that elevated water temperatures and heightened concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) dramatically increases the growth rate of a keystone species of sea star and may well be beneficial to other sea crustaceans.

Yes, that’s right–sea-dwelling creatures like a drop of acid in the drink. Crustaceans (e.g. shellfish and coral) survive by making carbonate structures and they do so by turning soluble bicarbonates in the water to carbonates. In basic terms, their way of life causes them to release CO2 into the water. It’s normal, not nasty, say the sea scientists.

But hold on, here’s another little fact to debunk the “acid oceans” drivel being hyped by hippy seaweed-huggers. Oceanographers all concur that no amount of CO2 could ever turn the oceans to “acid.” The experts say that seawater acidity (or pH) is alkaline at 8.2. Neutral is 7 while the acidity (pH) of carbonic acid is around 6.5 at saturation STP, [one litre CO2 / litre water]. Not just that, but only about 10% of CO2 turns to acid, the rest is simply dissolved!

Also, from a study done in 1993 -

In this study the experts found that the pH of the surface ocean is a sensitive function of its alkalinity. With totally inorganic variables it thus can serve as a very accurate proxy for past ocean pH to yield information about variations in atmospheric CO2. So thanks to the oceanographers we have a new and far more reliable proxy of past climate than given to us by those dodgy tree-ring counters so badly discredited in the recent Climategate scandal. It appears that boron isotopic composition of foraminiferal tests depends on the pH of seawater, and thus serves as the essence of this new and reliable proxy. What the report tells us is that seawater isotopic composition has been constant during the past 21 million years. For most of that period surface ocean pH was only 7.4 ± 0.2, but it then increased to 8.2 ± 0.2 (approx. the present value) at 7.5 million years ago. The newly found numbers are telling us that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide today is extremely low in broader historical terms. Or to put it another way, oceanographers are proving that the man made global warming theory just doesn’t hold water!

MORE

[BammBamm]

One of the Wenches from Otago University's Marine Science Department gave a big public talk about how increasing CO2 was going to acidify oceans, and the shells of certain species of shell fish were going to dissolve.

All 'boo hoo hoo - we are causing so much damage'.

When I asked her what the pH of the oceans were.

She didn't know.

When I asked her how much CO2 it would take to physically dissolve into the oceans to raise the pH to actually dissolve shell fish.

She didn't know.

When I asked her about the buffering effect of the worlds oceans and marine chemistry.

She didn't know.

All this from New Zealand's Leading Research University!

Yeah right!

Looooosers~!

[Ian Wishart]

IIRC, one of the regulars at Hot Topic is a character from Otago Uni's Marine Science Dept, so that would explain the infestation of brain-dead knee-jerk slogan-science you got hit with - probably one of his students.

[LordFlashHeart]

I'm curious how the Marine Science Department was able to afford and raise funds for its converted fishing vessel come 'research boat' from their meagre limited budget?

It is not suitable for its intended purpose as a sea going vessel, as any fisherman or sailor will tell you - and did before its purchase. But it was bought anyway through unknown channels.

Just like Dunedin is doing down south with its billion dollar stadium for 80,000 people.

[BammBamm]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmeshttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/8443687.stm/the_daily_politics/8443687.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/8443687.stm/the_daily_politics/8443687.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmeshttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/8443687.stm/the_daily_politics/8443687.stm

[CM]

>>>In fact, after hitting a record low extent in 2007 caused mainly by wind patterns blowing ice into warmer waters, Arctic sea ice has grown significantly in coverage since 2007, even exceeding the 30 year average it is measured against. "Visibly vanishing"? I don't think so.<<<

Um, according to this, we're right on the 2007 minimum, and nowhere near the 30 year average.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

[CM]

>>>Kevin Trenberth got so hot under the collar in the Climategate emails where he wrote:

"The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't".<<<<

That was in a PAPER he wrote. And you've taken it out of context. Have you no shame?