Busy twisting science again?

Yep, it seems so.

I do love the way the oil industry picks and chooses scientific facts to
misrepresent their case.

Here's just a couple:

1. Hurricanes pick up more strength over warmer waters.

Here, you look back only over 20 years and use statistical methods to
try and disprove the science (and computer modeling) that warmer waters
do indeed increase the strength of the storms.

You're mixing scientific fact with a narrow window of statistical data,
and the two can't be used that way.

2. Glacial ice melt

Here, you're quibbling over a hundred years or so in some modeling. Big
deal. If Florida goes under water, it goes under water. Further, you
neglect to mention the acceleration in melting, ie, the non-linear
response nature shows to global warming, and so you refuse to 'factor'
this into your estimates.

I'd love to go on, but it's a waste of time wih you.

Captain Compassion wrote:

An Inconvenient Truth
Gore as climate exaggerator
Ronald Bailey
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb061606.shtml

I have long been a critic of former Vice-President Al Gore, but as a
recent convert to the view that humanity is contributing significantly
to the current increase in average global temperatures, I was trying
to keep a somewhat open mind about his new global warming movie, An
Inconvenient Truth. As a film, An Inconvenient Truth is a competently
made documentary centered on Gore's famous global warming slide show
interspersed with shots of him brooding on the fate of the earth. This
is the sort of movie that appeals to science lecture powerpoint
junkies (of which I am one).

Gore warns that "what is at stake [is] our ability to live on planet
Earth, to have a future as a civilization." Let's take a look at some
of the evidence that he presents to justify this dire conclusion. He
begins by insisting that nothing he has to say is scientifically
controversial. Gore claims to be presenting the "scientific consensus"
on global warming. But is that so?

Well, at least not always. Take sea level rise for example. Gore
spends a lot of time talking about how dramatic melting of the
Antarctic and Greenland ice caps that could raise sea level by 20 feet
by 2100. He shows computer animated maps in which most of southern
Florida, southern Manhattan, Shanghai, and Bangladesh are inundated.
"Think of the impact of a couple hundred thousand refugees, and then
imagine 100 million," says Gore. Of course his reference to the couple
of hundred thousand refugees aims to evoke thoughts about the horrific
experience of New Orleanians last year.

Well, the "consensus" of climate scientists as represented in the
United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that sea
level is likely to rise between 4 inches to 35 inches with a central
value of 19 inches. Nineteen inches is not nothing and is 3 times
greater than the sea level rise the world experienced during the 20th
century, but Manhattan and most of Florida will most likely still be
above water in 2100. A new study in Science concluded if temperatures
rose steeply that the Greenland ice sheet might melt away in 500 to
1000 years. So fortunately we don't have to worry about the impact of
100 million people fleeing relentlessly rising seas all at once,
though it would be a good idea for builders and insurance companies to
keep the projected rise in sea level in mind.

Gore shows that many mountain glaciers are melting away all around the
world—glaciers in Alaska, Europe and Mount Kilimanjaro—are responding
to increased warming. (Though the glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro seem
to be melting away because of changes in rainfall patterns rather than
to increased heat. Of course, it is possible that the shift in
rainfall is the result of global warming.)

As further evidence of warming, Gore notes that permafrost is melting
in parts of Alaska and Siberia. The temperatures in central Siberia
are thought to have increased by 3 degrees Celsius over the past 40
years. This not only causes engineering and infrastructure problems,
but might also release even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as
once frozen organic matter begins to decompose. But is this warming
unprecedented? Perhaps not.

A Russian study in 2004 found that the average temperatures in Siberia
during the Holocene Climatic Optimum around 6000 years ago warmed up
by 3 to 9 degrees celcius in the winter, and by 2 to 6 degrees celcius
in the summer. Due to changes in the earth's orbit which affect how
much sunlight reaches the surface, pretty much the entire Arctic was
warmer than now 6000 years ago. Which brings me to the polar bears.

Gore shows an animation of a polar bear (very reminiscent of the Coca
Cola bears) swimming pitifully in the sea trying to haul itself up
onto the last piece of ice floating in the Arctic Ocean. In 2002, the
World Wildlife Fund issued a report warning that global warming was
endangering polar bears. Arctic sea ice is thawing sooner and this
means that the bears who hunt seals on the ice have fewer
opportunities to feed themselves. This week saw an alarming report
that hungry polar bears are turning cannibal. Yet, the WWF report
itself found that most bear populations are either stable or
increasing (see page 9 of the report). And remember, polar bears
evidently survived when Arctic temperatures were warmer 6000 years
ago. Of course, if predictions that the entire Arctic Ocean will be
ice free in 100 year turn out to be right, then the polar bears will
have a problem.

Gore also argues that global warming will increase storminess. As
suggestive evidence, Gore cited several examples of recent severe
weather events across the globe. For example, he pointed the heat wave
that hit Europe in 2003 that killed some 35,000 people with
temperatures hitting 104 degrees Fahrenheit. But historically such
temperatures are not unknown to Europe. In July 1921, a heat wave hit
much of Western Europe with the temperature reaching 104 degrees
Fahrenheit in Strasbourg, France. Gore also pointed to the monsoon
storm in 2005 that dumped 37 inches of rain in 24 hours on Mumbai
India. But storms like that have happened before—even in the United
States. In 1921, Thrall, Texas experienced a 24-hour downpour of 38
inches and Alvin, Texas was soaked with 43 inches over a 24-hour
period in 1979.

Gore points to the devastation of the Hurricane Katrina and flatly
says that global warming is increasing the intensity of hurricanes.
But that claim is hotly contested by climate scientists. For example,
a recent study in Geophysical Research Letters finds "based on data
over the last twenty years, no significant increasing trend is evident
in global ACE [accumulated cyclone energy] or in Category 4–5
hurricanes."

At a climatic moment (pun intended) in the film, Gore traces a red
temperature line inexorably increasing while he declares that 10 of
the hottest years on record occurred in the last 14 years. Then he
asserts that 2005 was the hottest ever. Pause for effect. Basically,
Gore's general point is right but it's just irritating for him not to
acknowledge that 2005 is statistically indistinguishable from 1998.
But doing that would not have had the quite the same dramatic effect
in the film.

Of course, the increase of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere
by burning fossil fuels is thought to be the chief contemporary driver
of global warming. All things being equal higher carbon dioxide levels
lead to higher temperatures. Gore illustrates the relation between
carbon dioxide and temperatures with a chart showing data taken from
ice cores from Antarctica. These ice cores contain tiny bubbles of air
from the earth's atmosphere all the way back to 650,000 years ago.
Scientists measure them to see the proportion of various gases that
were in the atmosphere when the bubbles were trapped. Gore points out
that temperatures and carbon dioxide go up in tandem over the last
four ice ages. But wait—Gore fails to mention something interesting.
Temperatures go up first and then the level of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere increases some 800 or more years later. The one
interpretation is that orbital changes start periods of warming which
then affect ocean circulation such that the oceans begin to release
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which leads to further warming. In
any case, current carbon dioxide levels are 27 percent higher than
they have been in the last 650,000 years.

Gore overhypes the spread of various diseases due to global warming.
As proof for his claim, he points to the arrival of West Nile virus in
the United States and even hints that avian flu might be affected by
global warming. West Nile virus (WNV) is a mosquito-borne virus that
first appeared in New York City in 1999, apparently somehow arriving
from Israel. It is quickly spreading across the country carried by
birds on which mosquitoes feast. The Centers for Disease Control map
of WNV and related viruses shows that WNV is not confined to tropical
regions. WNV took hold here not because of increases in global
temperatures, but because, like malaria, cholera, and dengue before
it, an appropriate carrier finally made it across the Atlantic.
Lowering global average temperatures is not the way these diseases
will be controlled, effective public health measures and vaccines is.
And of course, outbreaks of flu are not generally associated with
higher temperatures.

Finally, Gore allows that some skeptics of global warming catastrophe
may be sincere in their beliefs; however, he apparently assumes that
most such global warming "deniers" are similar to "tobacco scientists"
who were paid for "studies" that sowed doubt about whether or not
cigarettes can cause lung cancer. Make no mistake about it—what the
tobacco companies did was a despicable attempt by corporations to
hijack and distort science to protect their profits and it backfired.
Perhaps some global warming skeptics are paid advocates (liars), but
many are not. Gore's tobacco industry insinuation is an attempt to
discredit opponents by smear rather than on the basis of scientific
evidence. Why does he bother with such low tactics since the bulk of
the scientific evidence supports his views now? Because partisanship
dies hard.

In An Inconvenient Truth, Gore makes a big deal about how his Harvard
professor, oceanographer Roger Revelle, influenced his views about the
dangers of global warming. A genuinely gifted scientist, Revelle was
responsible for the creation of the Mauna Loa Observatory that has
been measuring the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1958.
However, Professor Revelle co-authored an article in the house journal
of the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC in 1991 which concluded, “The
scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify
drastic action at this time.” Professor Revelle died shortly after the
article appeared. This conclusion apparently dismayed Gore whose staff
worked behind the scenes to spread the rumor that Revelle's co-authors
had taken advantage of a senile old man and that Revelle's name should
be taken off the article. This sorry episode ended with a lawsuit in
which another Harvard professor who had conferred with Gore's staff
formally apologized for making his insinuations.

In any case few climate scientists now contest the idea that humanity
is contributing to the current warming trend. All of the various data
sets, surface thermometers, satellites and weather balloons, now show
global average warming of about +0.16 degrees Celsius per decade since
1979. Whether or not this rate of warming would lead to catastrophe or
not is still very much an open question. So what, if anything, should
we do about any future warming?

Unfortunately, those who have been skeptical that global warming was
happening at all will now have a credibility problem with the public
when it comes to policy recommendations on how best to handle any
future warming. The much of the public will likely conclude that if
the skeptics were wrong on the science, then they will be wrong on
policy. Of course that's not necessarily the case—being right on
science doesn't mean that one is automatically also an expert on the
proper policy response.

What does Gore recommend? He focuses on policies the cut emissions,
but largely ignores those that would enhance our ability to adapt to
future temperature changes. So An Inconvenient Truth ends with
suggestions for how viewers can personally cut back on their carbon
emissions—install compact fluorescent light bulbs; take mass transit;
adjust thermostats two degrees up in summer and two down in winter;
use less hot water; and plant carbon-absorbing trees. He also urges
viewers to push their Congressional representatives to vote for the
McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act which would
set limits on U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases. Gore advises
consumers to switch to renewable fuels, but is strangely silent on
climate friendly nuclear power. If we did everything Gore recommends,
he claims that our emissions would drop to what they were in 1970—a
cut of over 25 percent. However, some researchers argue that in order
to stop the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that
emissions must be reduced by 70 percent worldwide. A 70 percent cut
would mean lowering U.S. emissions to 1928 levels.

Gore has won the global warming debate—the world is warming as a
consequence of human activity, chiefly the loading up of the
atmosphere with carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Yet he feels
that he must exaggerate the dangers by propounding implausible
scenarios in which sea levels rise 20 feet by 2100. He pretends that
the science is settled with regard to the effect of global warming on
hurricanes. And he pushes a scientifically tenuous connection between
the spread of diseases and global warming. These are little
inconvenient truths that cut against his belief that global warming
constitutes a climate emergency. On balance Gore gets it more right
than wrong on the science (we'll leave the policy stuff to another
time), but he undercuts his message by becoming the opposite of a
global warming denier. He's a global warming exaggerator.

I give An Inconvenient Truth a tepid 2 stars.

Disclosure: I own a small amount of ExxonMobil stock and I am looking
forward to investing in biotech cellulosic ethanol production someday.

I'd love to go on, but it's a waste of time wih you.

On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:02:56 -0700, Captain Compassion
<daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote:

An Inconvenient Truth
Gore as climate exaggerator
Ronald Bailey
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb061606.shtml

That the climate is changing and ocean temps increasing is not in
doubt.

That human activity is exacerbating it is still under debate.
Considering the potential risks, it might be better to err on the side
of caution and begin to take steps to minimize the effects of human
activities on the environment.

Ironically, pollution regulations designed to reduce particulate and
non warming gasses may be as responsible for warming as the fact of
burning fossil fuels in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
"Global dimming is the gradual reduction in the amount of global
hemispherical irradiance (or total solar irradiance) at the Earth's
surface, observed since the beginning of systematic measurements in
1950s. The effect varies by location, but worldwide it is of the order
of a 5% reduction over the three decades from 1960–1990. This trend
has reversed during the past decade. Global dimming creates a cooling
effect that may have partially masked the effect of greenhouse gases
on global warming."