Alternate Views

A Response to

1999-2000 American Association of Petroleum Geologists
- Distinguished Lecture-
"A Climate of Doubt About Global Warming"
by Robert C. Balling, Jr.
Friday, March 17
3:00 p.m. - 130 Glover Building

Myths and Facts about Global Warming

“However, many of the most fundamental global warming issues remain in a state of considerable debate in the scientific community.”

After studying all available scientific data on the earth's climate, scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded: "The balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate."  This panel consists of 2500 climate experts.   One writer suggests that these studies are “perhaps the most intensive, peer-reviewed scientific process ever undertaken in human history.”  The Intergovernmental Panel also concluded that the 20th century is at least as warm as any period since 1400, while a recent study found the mean temperature of 1901-1990 is higher than any 90-year interval since AD 914.

There is a very small group of climate scientists that disagree (most of these are financed by the fossil fuel industry).  However their numbers are quickly shrinking.  Recently Roy W. Spencer, one of the more prominent skeptics stated: "We're now more willing to admit that global warming is occurring. The debate now is how much warming is going to be in the future."

Source:  http://www.me3.org/issues/climate/ and http://www.ucsusa.org/

“In addition, increased output of the sun, lack of recent volcanism, and trends in El Nino/Southern Oscillation have certainly contributed to any observed warming.”

Even though 1998 was the hottest year both globally and nationally, it was 1999 that really makes global warming hard to deny. Although El Nino years are supposed to be warm, La Nina years (1999) are supposed to be cooler than normal.  "When you have a very warm year that occurs during a La Nina, that makes it  more difficult to argue against the reality of global warming," -- NASA senior climate scientist Roy W. Spencer, long-time skeptic.

Source:  http://www.me3.org/issues/climate/

“The entire issue is further complicated by the fact that satellite-based and balloon-based measurements of lower atmospheric temperatures show no warming whatsoever over the past few decades.”

In its 1996 Second Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded there was sufficient evidence to show that global average temperature had increased over the past century. Critics have often maligned this conclusion, pointing to temperature measurements produce by satellites that showed a slight cooling trend in global temperature since 1979. New research results published in the 13 August issue of Nature indicate that the previously reported global temperature trends measured by satellites may be in error.

The new study argues that the temperature measurements from satellites show a spurious decrease with time due to a neglected effect related to declining satellite orbit. Satellite orbit decays by as much as a mile each year, due to atmospheric drag on the apparatus. In turn, the decreasing orbit changes the satellite's angular view of the surface and hence the geometry of its measurements. Wentz and Schabel determined that as the satellites dropped, their calculated temperature trends contained an artifact related to the uncompensated new geometry. When satellite data taken from 1979 to 1995 were recalculated, the lower troposphere temperature indicated a warming trend of about 0.07°C per decade, consistent with the ground surface temperature trend of +0.13°C per decade over the same period and in marked contrast to the uncorrected data's cooling trend of about 0.03°C per decade.

However, the authors warn that the errors and uncertainty in the satellite data make definitive statements about atmospheric warming unwise. Indeed, in their opinion, the satellite data requires still more rigorous error analysis. In the meantime, the IPCC's conclusion that global average temperature has risen by 0.3 to 0.6°C over the last century remains valid because it was based on analysis of not one but several different records of global temperature. These included measurements from the ground surface, weather balloons and boreholes, as well as data on sea ice extent and glaciers.

Nature, Vol. 394 (August 13, 1998), pp. 661-664.

To downplay the threat of climate change, critics focus on outdated computer models and on satellite data available only since 1979 -- too short a period to assess climate trends. Current computer models incorporate recent improvements in scientific knowledge. For example, climatologists now know more about the atmospheric role of aerosols -- tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere -- and the circulation of oceans. The match between predictions from these models and 150 years of global surface temperature measurements (more reliable in climate terms than the brief satellite record) is close, though not exact. This discrepancy indicates that scientists still have more to learn about what influences the climate system.

But scientists base their evaluation of climate trends on much more than computer models and temperature records. Historical studies of glacier ice cores, tree rings, and coral growth layers have produced estimates of temperature and precipitation over much of the globe for the last 1,000 years. All these analyses show that the twentieth century is warmer than at any time in the last 1,000 years.

Source: http://www.ucsusa.org/ 

Consensus Denied
Holy War Over Global Warming

By Alexander Ewen

Excerpts from an Article b Alexander Ewen in Native Americas (Fall 1999), publication of Akwe:kon Press of the American Indian Program at Cornell University. (29 February 2000)

Source: www.globalchange.org

One of the main vehicles for attacks on climate change initiatives during the Rio Conference was a campaign known as the Information Council on the Environment "ICE," funded by energy companies-in particular, Edison Electric Institute, the Southern Company, and the Western Fuels Association. Like the more recent initiative by the American Petroleum Institute, the ICE campaign, launched in 1991, was designed to put scientists in front of the media to portray global warming as "theory rather than fact," and plant stories that would minimize the seriousness of the threat. The ICE campaign introduced the country to three major scientific critics, who became known as skeptics of the global warming process: Drs. Patrick J. Michaels, Robert C. Balling Jr. and Sherwood Idso.

…

Although Michaels has received more than $165,000 in research grants from the energy industry, his funding pales in comparison to Balling, who by his own account has taken in more than $700,000 from energy interests. The Director of the Office of Climatology for Arizona State University, Balling is the author of The Heated Debate, Greenhouse Predictions Versus Climate Reality. The Heated Debate was published in 1992 by the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, a group that advocates a "free economy, private initiative and limited government," as well as anti-environmentalism. Like Michaels, Balling's main argument has been that the computer models are wrong, and the warming that they have predicted has not materialized. Balling argues that the manner in which climate data has been collected over the past century is inaccurate, and that the various methods used to collect this data would only give different results anyway. In particular, Balling argued that temperature gauges, many of them located at the airports, were affected by the increasing urbanization around them, which raises temperatures locally. Like Michaels, Balling concedes a slight warming effect, and along with Michaels argues that the net effects of global warming will be minor and even beneficial. Unlike Michaels, who appears belligerent in the media while rarely authoring a scientific treatise on the subject, Balling is more soft-spoken and publishes regularly.

…

Balling continued to take temperature measurements at isolated sites around the world, and continued to report signs of a cooling, not a warming trend, but no one was taking him seriously. Although Idso restarted his "carbon dioxide is good" campaign by forming the Greening Earth Society with the support of the coal industry, Idso's visions of a green planet were being taken less seriously as well.

…

According to these global warming debunkers, environmentalists are in favor only of "slowing our economic growth and lowering our standards of living" in an attempt to solve the world's problems. For Michaels and the rest, the environmentalists don't understand that humans are a part of nature, and the most fundamental tenet of human nature is self-interest. For the Cato and Fraser Institutes and others like them, a free-market economy is the natural state of humans-it is perfect, it will create the perfect world, and it could not possibly cause a global "super-disaster."

It would be simplistic to assume that Michaels, Baliunas, Lindzen, and the rest were in it for the money, even though they may have accepted money from energy and free-market interests. In many ways they are engaged in a holy war against environmentalism, which they see as a religion, and which threatens their own.

In mid-1998 the American Petroleum Institute's plan to recruit a new cadre of scientists was exposed by the press and the plan was shelved. Later that year it was also determined that atmospheric drag had caused the U.S. weather satellites to dip closer to the Earth in their orbits, and thus skew their data collection. When the new orbits were integrated into the temperature analyses, they showed a definite warming trend, overturning Christy's work.

In June of 1999, the South Pacific islands of Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea in the nation of Vanuato disappeared beneath the ocean, the first victims of the global rise in sea levels.

The News Council decision against the Star Tribune's editorial on global warming skeptics was mistaken

by Michael Noble, executive director, Minnesotans for an Energy Efficient Economy

The Star Tribune did not treat two scientists unfairly when it said they disseminate unsubstantiated opinions without peer review, and their ideas have been found to lack merit. The views on global warming of Patrick Michaels and Robert Balling have been rejected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC), which represents perhaps the most intensive, peer-reviewed scientific process ever undertaken in human history Michaels' and Balling's climate views are generally not found in peer-reviewed journals, except as unreviewed letters to the editor. Instead, they appear in speeches, private newsletters, website and on editorial pages -- all great venues for free speech but not science.

Under oath in a proceeding of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission in 1995, both men admitted that some of their work is paid for by the coal or oil industry. Funding by vested interests does not mean bad climate science. However, prior to the Minnesota proceedings, neither man disclosed his industry funding. After Michaels' and Balling's associations with the fossil fuel industry were exposed under cross-examination by lawyers for the Minnesota Attorney General's office and were detailed in the Gelbspan book, many reporters began adding the adjective "industry-supported" in stories referencing these skeptics. All news people would agree that this fact is important public information. (For key text from the cross-examination, see http://www.ozone.org/page17.html).

Some Council members felt the editorial could have promoted the new book and St. Paul speech by retired Boston Globe editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Ross Gelbspan without naming or attacking scientists. However, key themes of the book are the battles over the American public's understanding of climate science, and the roles of individuals like Michaels and Balling. Most important, the book contains a 40-page appendix of writings by top-echelon climate scientists, systematically rebutting the climate views of Michaels, Balling and other contrarians. Unfortunately, although the appendix was the basis of the Star Tribune editorial, it was not distributed prior to the News Council's deliberation, but only made available at the hearing.

Scientists deserve to be judged by their scientific views, not the company they keep. However, if money did not sway Michaels' and Balling's views, it amplified otherwise minor voices. Coal money still publishes Michaels' newsletter, and Kuwaiti oil money published Robert Balling's book in several languages.

The Heat Is On appendix quotes Tom M.L. Wigley, senior scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, who says of Michaels: "While not taken into account, his work has been considered, and judged to be irrelevant. His work simply does not pass muster scientifically; so it is not surprising that it was ignored in preference to the comprehensive review documents produced by the IPCC."

In addition, the appendix includes a review of Balling's book, The Heated Debate, by Michael MacCracken of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. MacCracken criticized Balling for attacking "straw man" catastrophic scenarios from popular literature, instead of addressing the IPCC science. Poking holes in straw men is rhetorically satisfying, but not science. MacCracken disclosed in a personal communication that at a business-sponsored forum as recently as May 1998, Balling persisted in offering arguments dismissed in the peer-reviewed literature.

A New York Times (4/26/98) story confirms that the existing band of skeptics have lost their credibility. The National Environmental Trust uncovered a plan by the American Petroleum Institute to spend $5 million to launch a public relations campaign to make "those promoting the Kyoto treaty on the basis of extant science appear to be out of touch with reality." The initial task would be to "identify, recruit and train a team of five independent scientists to participate in media outreach," emphasizing "new faces... who do not have a long history of visibility and/or participation in the climate change debate." The Petroleum Institute seeks scientists to brief science writers for the media and contribute "a steady stream of columns and letters to the editor."

Reporters and editorial writers who want to regularly cover this issue with a Minnesota angle but don't want to rely on that steady stream should contact info@me3.org. Science affirms that continued warming threatens Minnesota's economy and natural heritage -- including our agriculture, our forests, our coldwater fish, and our state parks and wilderness. Minnesotans look to media for real information about how global warming will affect their lives and their childrens' lives. The best available summary of Minnesota impacts is Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient Economy's recent report "Playing with Fire: Global Warming in Minnesota" distributed through the Minnesota Science Teachers Association (http://www.me3.org/issues/climate.html).

Following the News Council determination, Michaels chimed up in his hometown Richmond, Virginia paper (5/6/98) that the ruling could prevent future editorial statements of the kind. his is wishful thinking. Perhaps the Star Tribune could have given chapter and verse about why and how the views of Michaels and Balling have been rejected by their peers. However, the characterization of the scientific reputations of these two gentlemen in the area of climate science was not unfair.

From EV World Letters to the Editor 

Dear EV World Editor:

A response to the Balling interviews:

A more disciplined, data based response to Balling's views should be carried by EV world. Even after assembled, some uncertainty will remain regarding global warming. However, there are other good reasons for curtailing fossil fuel use.

The thrust of my resonse (sic) now is limited to my concern that Dr. Balling's views are not presented as one expects a scientist to speak. For example," go look at the biological journals, and you'd find many studies out there indicating that there are positive benefits to (the) biosphere of increased CO2".

Instead of citing sources and putting the studies into perspective as a scientist should, Balling merely shifts the burden of scholarship onto the reader, leaving the impression that the data supports Balling's views. There are some questions to address such as: How many studies? Is each study a based on new findings or merely a rehash of what was written earlier? What percent of global warming studies reach positive conclusions regarding the benefits of increased CO2 levels? What journals are the studies published in? What is the reputation of the journal in the sceintific community? Who funds the journals? Who sponsors the studies? Who funds Dr. Balling?

Balling suggests that nothing can be done to stop the CO2 buildup and that one would be a fool to choose efficiency in transportation. Other data exists which suggests many positive actions can be taken and should be taken now. As a very large energy consumer, the United States bears a special burden to limit its fossil fuel use and substitute efficiency and renewable energy sources. Limited urban sprawl and mass transit systems offer other positive actions.

The necessity of high economic costs to offset fossil fuel use is also presented as fact when other studies exist that provide very low cost methods to cut fossil fuel use. Balling fails to supply supporting data and fails to put the data into perspective.

The issue of job losses also is presented without putting it into perspective. There are a wide range of estimated job losses and ways of lessening the burden of job losses which Balling fails to address.

Balling's interview sounds more like advocacy rather than disciplined, data based thinking. A scientist speaking as a scientist offers a trail of logic for others to examine so that they can decide whether their conclusions are data based.

Conservative views are widely promoted and accepted in society now. And some conservatives are known to boast they have won the battle of ideas and all that remains is the broad implementation of them. There are other scholars, thinkers and critics whose views need broader dissemination. Why not try to interview some of them?

Robert L. Vogl. Ph.D.  

More information of Balling: http://www.wmich.edu/environmental-studies/Writings/swords3.html 
More information of environmental myths: http://members.aol.com/jimn469897/myths.htm  

More information on global warming:
http://cool.policy.net/local/ 
http://www.climatenetwork.org/eco/ 
http://www.globalchange.org/featall/2000spring2.htm 
http://www.cseindia.org/html/cmp/climate/ew/ 
For cities: http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid127.php