FACT CHECK: The National Review’s Cover Story On Global Warming
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/snowjob22.jpg
The National Review’s June 6 cover story, Scare of the Century by
Jason Lee Steorts, has several serious errors and omissions.
By distorting evidence, Steorts misleads his readers about the threats
of global warming.
Here’s a debunk of some of Steorts’s inaccurate claims:
CLAIM: "[T]here is wide disagreement about the extent to which
carbon-dioxide emissions are responsible for the warming we’ve seen so
far."
FACT: In 2002, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that the
recent warming trend "is real and has been particularly strong within
the past 20 years--due mostly to human activities."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0607/p02s02-usgn.html
FACT: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program concluded that humans
are driving the warming trend through greenhouse gas emissions, noting
that "the observed patterns of change over the past 50 years cannot be
explained by natural processes alone, nor by the effects of
short-lived atmospheric constituents such as aerosols and tropospheric
ozone alone."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/02/AR2006050201677.html
FACT: Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on
global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one
challenged the scientific consensus the earth’s temperature is rising
due to human activity.
CLAIM: "When it’s not even clear that the warming we’ve seen is
hurting us -- many argue that it’s a boon, citing its benefits to
agriculture and its potential to make severe climates more hospitable
-- such draconian solutions should be unthinkable."
FACT: The 2001 report by the IPCC finds that global climate change’s
"negative health impacts are anticipated to outweigh positive health
impacts." http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/348.htm Assuming
that current emission levels continue, an increase in heat waves and a
deterioration in air quality "will increase the risk of mortality and
morbidity, principally in older age groups and the urban poor."
Additionally, any "regional increases in climate extremes (storms,
floods, cyclones, etc.) associated with climate change would cause
physical damage, population displacement, and adverse effects on food
production, freshwater availability and quality, and would increase
the risks of infectious disease epidemics, particularly in developing
countries."
CLAIM: "Various studies show that warmer temperatures are causing the
ice sheet there to lose mass at the margins. But, as in Antarctica,
higher sea temperatures are also causing greater snowfall and building
up ice in the interior…In fact, Science had earlier published a study
by Ola Johannessen that used satellite measurements to determine how
much the ice sheet was growing. Johannessen found that, between 1992
and 2003, it was gaining on average 5.4 centimeters of elevation per
year."
FACT: The study (by Johanessen et al.) did find there was an increase
in snow accumulation on Greenland’s interior.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/310/5750/1013?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Greenland+snow&searchid=1140685763702_1408&FIRSTINDEX=20&journalcode=sci
This is exactly what you’d expect as the earth gets warmer. The
climate scientists at realclimate.org explain: "However, Johanessen et
al. were not able to measure all of the coastal ranges. Indeed, the
thinning of the margins and growth in the interior Greenland is an
expected response to increased temperatures and more precipitation in
a warmer climate. These results present no contradiction to the
accelerated sliding near the coasts."
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=267
CLAIM: "If today’s temperatures are causing Greenland’s coastal ice to
slide into the sea, it must have been positively galloping there 80
years ago. That’s significant, because the warming period in the early
20th century took place well before fossil-fuel burning could have
triggered global warming."
FACT: According Climatic Research Unit data, the last three decades
(1976-2005) have seen a sharper rise in global air temperature than
any other period since at least 1860.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
CLAIM: How much ice has Antarctica gained? In a 2005 study published
in Science, Curt Davis used satellite measurements to calculate
changes in the ice sheet’s elevation, and found that it gained 45
billion tons of ice per year between 1992 and 2003. Far from flooding
the coasts, that’s enough to lower sea levels by roughly 0.12
millimeters annually.
FACT: Davis has criticized the global warming skeptics’ misuse of his
data. The whole story, according to Davis, is that increased
precipitation in the interior of Antarctica is "predicted consequence
of global climate warming."
https://cf.iats.missouri.edu/news/NewsBureauSingleNews.cfm?newsid=9842
Warmer temperatures mean more participation and more snow on the
interior of the continent. Meanwhile, "Growth of the ice sheet was
only noted on the interior of the ice sheet and did not include
coastal areas. Coastal areas are known to be losing mass."
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Right-wingers continue to try to cover Big Oil's asses with regard to
global warming. How foolish they are.
Harry
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