Global Warming

…almost.

Seen in the Guardian:

James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

You know, if you were going to seek to have a sensational trial to end a perceived travesty, perhaps effort would better spent elsewhere.  Maybe we ought to have a “high crimes” trial for educational leaders for failing to teach their students logic and critical thinking, for example.

First some background for readers who haven’t heard me ramble on about global warming and climate change before – I believe that climate change is a threat to society.  I can accept that climate change may be influenced by human activity.  However, I do not subscribe to the global warming hype of the past decade, and instead think it’s far more likely that any climate weirdness we have perceived is the result of longer-term weather cycles, increased awareness of global weather, etc. than “real” global warming.

Despite my skepticism in global warming hype, I like and support many of the measures being advocated by climate change activists.  While they may not impact the long-term climate cycles we barely understand, conservation and sustainability are good ideas, I think, on their own merits.

Global warming activists like James Hansen remind me a bit of George W. Bush and the run-up to the Iraq war.

Back in 2001 and 2002, there were some decent reasons to seek the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.  The crimes committed against his people, the rampant corruption around sanctions loopholes meant to ensure access to food and necessary supplies in spite of international embargo, the ecological damage being done in a sensitive part of the world, the failure to live up to the agreements which lead to the cease-fire after the Gulf War of ‘91.

However, Bush, seeking to drum up support for the war, used the hot-button of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, to play upon Americans’ post-9/11 fears to generate support for war.

We went to Iraq, overthrew Saddam….and realized that Bush administration had mislead us to reach that point.   American credibility was ruined, and achieving some of the still-worthwhile goals of regime change have been severely aggravated with the fallout from that deception and betrayal.

I don’t think that Hansen and others are intentionally trying to mislead the people of the world.  However, they are evangelists, who seem to believe in the cause of Global Warming without critically challenging and re-testing their beliefs.

The world would be a far better place, I think, if folks like that would occasionally take a pause and ask, “what if I’m wrong?”.

Assume for a moment that Hansen’s call to put oil company execs on trial for crimes against humanity actually had legs, and was successful.  

What if he’s wrong?

Could the sensationalism of such a trial, perhaps accompanied by a brief stint of global cooling (Solar Cycle 24 is still missing, after all), cause everything associated with Global Warming to fall into public disrepute?

That would be a shame since, as I’ve said before, conservation and sustainability are good for reasons beyond attempting to combat climate change.

Perhaps rather than seeking oil executive blood, climate change activists would be more effective by expending energy on expanding their message through the use of logic and reason, rather than attempting to sell it with high-profile temper-tantrums.

There has been a bit of noise among critics of global warming over a report from NASA announcing:

A cool-water anomaly known as La Niña occupied the tropical Pacific Ocean throughout 2007 and early 2008. In April 2008, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that while the La Niña was weakening, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation—a larger-scale, slower-cycling ocean pattern—had shifted to its cool phase. [...]

Unlike El Niño and La Niña, which may occur every 3 to 7 years and last from 6 to 18 months, the PDO can remain in the same phase for 20 to 30 years. The shift in the PDO can have significant implications for global climate, affecting Pacific and Atlantic hurricane activity, droughts and flooding around the Pacific basin, the productivity of marine ecosystems, and global land temperature patterns. “This multi-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation ‘cool’ trend can intensify La Niña or diminish El Niño impacts around the Pacific basin,” said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “The persistence of this large-scale pattern [in 2008] tells us there is much more than an isolated La Niña occurring in the Pacific Ocean.”

Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and landscape changes like deforestation. According to Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and climate scientist, “These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.”

The emphasis is mine.   While the anti-global-warming camp seems to be gleefully focusing on expectations of a cyclical cool-down, I can’t help but feel a little satisfied over how the the emphasized text supports my own personal belief — that if human-driven global warming is occurring, it is all but impossible for casual observers like you or I to identify, amidst the noise of longer term weather cycles which we might not fully understand.

Or in English — I can believe that “global warming” is happening, but the climatological anomalies the pro-warming crowd hypes are probably noise or the impact of timing in normal cyclical processes.

That isn’t to say that climate changes aren’t worrisome, and shouldn’t be planned for.   Research and reasonable measures to reduce the harm to society…or at least to prepare for the risk, are probably wise steps to take.

Similarly, many of the conservation / pro-environment initiatives that have been proposed, in the name of combating global warming, seem to be good ideas without the perceived crisis of imminent global climatological disaster fueling their consideration.

I just worry that when the hyped changes fail to manifest, and normal cycles reverse, there will be a backlash from a mislead public, which will derail efforts which have value on other merits.

For example, consider the following chart which appeared at “Watts Up With That?”, taken from a paper on the PDO by Professor Easterbrook, retired from Western Washington University:

The blog post includes an addendum from Professor Easterbrook, who observes:

The projected warming from ~2040 to ~2070 is NOT driven by CO2, it’s merely a continuation of warm/cool cycles over the past 500 years, long before man-made CO2 could have been a factor. We’ve been warming up from the Little Ice Age at rate of about 1 degree or so per century and the 2040-70 projection is simply a continuation of non-AGW cycles.

That further supports my suspicion that we’re noticing cycles-upon-cycles…and even if humans weren’t influencing climate, there might be a reason to plan for a warmer world.

On the other hand, the Maunder Minimum folks happily note that Sunspot Cycle 24 still hasn’t really kicked off…

I have a weird sense of humor.

In response to a discussion on misc.transport.road, in which the pros and cons of reinstituting a national speed limit in the name of conservation and stopping global warming are being debated, my silly idea for a new (and presumably ignored) national speed limit has been stuck in my head.

Thus, some artwork is required to get it out:

I know, the alignment and sizing of the text isn’t SHS-spec….but I have too many other things to do this evening to spend arguing with Photoshop. 

I realize that this is nothing compared to the problems in some parts of the world, but if this isn’t just media hype, it’s still a little troubling I think….

Seen in the New York Sun:

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.[...]

At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.[...]

“Due to the limited availability of rice, we are limiting rice purchases based on your prior purchasing history,” a sign above the dwindling supply said.

Shoppers said the limits had been in place for a few days, and that rice supplies had been spotty for a few weeks. A store manager referred questions to officials at Costco headquarters near Seattle, who did not return calls or e-mail messages yesterday.

An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour. Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.

Can we please start killing the idea that using food as fuel might not be the best idea? Biofuels are still a very intriguing concept as a fuel source…but we still need to eat.

Driving home from work today, I of course got a taste of the commentary associated with the 1 April Congressional event, where four Big Oil CEO’s were called in to be yelled at for making too much money (and investing too little of that profit into new energy).

Naturally, the pro-environment commentators mentioned the oft-mentioned concepts of windfall profits taxes and carbon taxes, as being ways to combat Big Oil from “taking advantage” of average Americans, and of getting Americans to pay for damage their wasteful ways are doing to the environment.

Now, I should admit that I am not a fan of a windfall profits tax.  Defining a “windfall profit” is a potentially daunting task, and it is the hope for exceptional profits that incent investors to risk exceptional losses.  I’m also not a fan of carbon taxes, due to wishy-washiness of measuring potential harm, and due to the likelihood that the government would waste the extra revenue.

(I’m apparently an evil humvee-driving capitalist for thinking such things.)

With that disclaimer aside…I got to wondering, what if the government sponsored a new capital venture firm, charged with assisting in the funding of new energy or conservation-oriented technology, in return, of course, for an ownership stake.

Initially, this venture capital firm would have the government as its primary investor and shareholder.  However, any windfall profits taxes or carbon taxes would instead be considered additional investment into the venture capital firm…in return for an ownership stake.   Rather than being true taxes, they essentially become mandatory R&D investments.

I could also imagine permitting voluntary investment into this firm.  Let individuals or corporations make, subject to reasonable limits, tax-deductible contributions to this new entity, again in return for an ownership stake.

I’d think that permitting this new entity some tax-advantaged status, given its semi-quasi-public nature, would also encourage this directed investment. 

And perhaps the firm could be chartered to exist for a certain period of time — say 30 or 40 years — with its assets (at that point, primarily in the form of shares in by-then-profitable ventures) distributed proportionally to the firm’s owners, with the government’s portion either being returned to the public in the form of a tax credit, or being used to (for example) supplement the Social Security trust fund.

I know there are probably various gotcha’s.  For example, to be effective, it would need to be run as a real venture capital operation…something that could be challenging given the government’s involvement, and given politicians’ tendency to meddle.

But it’s still an intriguing idea to me.

Seen in USA Today:

The widespread use of ethanol from corn could result in nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions as the gasoline it would replace because of expected land-use changes, researchers concluded Thursday. The study challenges the rush to biofuels as a response to global warming.

The researchers said that past studies showing the benefits of ethanol in combating climate change have not taken into account almost certain changes in land use worldwide if ethanol from corn — and in the future from other feedstocks such as switchgrass — become a prized commodity.[...]

The study said that after taking into account expected worldwide land-use changes, corn-based ethanol, instead of reducing greenhouse gases by 20%, will increases it by 93% compared to using gasoline over a 30-year period. Biofuels from switchgrass, if they replace croplands and other carbon-absorbing lands, would result in 50% more greenhouse gas emissions, the researchers concluded.[...]

“We should be focusing on our use of biofuels from waste products” such as garbage, which would not result in changes in agricultural land use, Searchinger said in an interview. “And you have to be careful how much you require. Use the right biofuels, but don’t require too much too fast. Right now we’re making almost exclusively the wrong biofuels.”

I’m one of several folks who have been concerned about the unintended consequences of drinking the ethanol kool-aid, ranging from stressing already limited water supplies to fallout from the increased competition for food crops.

Can we now start looking for more viable sustaniable fuel options, rather than just pandering to agribusiness lobbyists?

I’ve written previously (here and here) about some of the suggestions that climate change and solar activity might be more closely linked than popular global warming wisdom would suggest.

The latest interesting installment can be found at ScienceNow:

To help nail down the effect of solar radiation, geophysicist Mike Lockwood of the University of Southampton, U.K., examined data available since 1955 on the monthly average output of the sun, including sunspots, magnetic activity, and cosmic-ray variations. Then he compared those data, month by month, with average global temperature records, as well as El Niño- and La Niña-induced weather cycles and the atmospheric effects of major volcanic eruptions. The result, Lockwood and colleagues report in two papers published online this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, is that for the past half-century, the sun has exerted only a small influence on climate–about 3% compared with the warming influence of greenhouse gases and natural climate cycles (see illustration).

Lockwood says a key advantage of his approach is that he relied on hard data rather than computer models. “One problem that crops up [in the climate discussion] is that scientists use complex models that nonspecialists don’t understand and therefore don’t trust,” he explains.

The ScienceNow article provides the graphic above, with yellow representing solar output, blue representing El Niño cycles, and grey representing average temperatures.

I’m not sure that I’d take that chart as proof of a lack of correlation.   There certainly seems to be some correlation (allowing for random noise, etc.)…but there also seems to be something else at work.

I still have my earlier reservation about studies like this, and global warming (or anti-global-warming) pop science in general — there’s too much politicization of the issue to look at these sorts of reports without discounting the findings due to perceived bias.

I also still think that advocates for making changes to combat global warming would have more success over the long-term if they frame their suggestions with an observation that even if they’re wrong, change is good for other reasons (combating pollution, conservation of resources, etc.)

It’s a shame that discussion on global warming, climate change, and conservation have all become so politically charged. Because, frankly, I don’t know whether I’m supposed to trust this sort of news (via Watts Up With That):

The first new sunspot in weeks has emerged today. The spot that has emerged is small and on the equator, so it appears that it is a cycle 23 spot rather than one from the cycle 24 that is gave one spot on January 8th, signaling a start of cycle 24, but has given no cycle 24 type spots since.

Based on what we know about the sun, a cycle 24 spot would be reverse polarity to cycle 23 spots and high latitude. The longer cycle 24 continues to delay producing its spots heightens the concern that we may be in for a longer inactive period on the sun, such as a Dalton type minimum.

In case you’re wondering what a “Dalton type minimum” is, Wikipedia provides this bit of trivia:

The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, lasting from about 1790 to 1830. Like the Maunder Minimum and Sporer Minimum it coincided with a period of lower than average global temperatures.

There is even a blog dedicated to the prediction of an imminent Dalton-type minimum, entitled “Dalton Minimum Returns.

A recent post there links to a presentation by David Archibald which goes into a bit more detail about such predictions.

Personally, I’m not familiar enough with long-term climatology and the science of global warming to feel comfortable in knowing whether to believe or disbelieve such discussion.

True, I have previously expressed a willingness to believe in global warming, although recent warm years I’d attribute to the effects of other cycles and normal random variation.

However, the idea of cyclical variation of solar activity on the earth’s climate does fit in on my cycles-upon-cycles view of the world.

It would actually be amusingly ironic if human-induced climate change lead to the potential upcoming Dalton-like minimum being not quite as bad as it would otherwise be.

Bah. Now I have a headache from thinking about all these correlations.

Despite that headache, I still think that there are good reasons to pursue conservation and more sustainable technology, beyond the global warming predictions/hype.

OK, I liked. Another pop-science news story, this time from the Daily Express:

Satellite data shows that concerns over the levels of sea ice may have been premature. It was feared that the polar caps were vanishing because of the effects of global warming. But figures from the respected US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that almost all the “lost” ice has come back.[...]

But scientists say the northern hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades. They add that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966.

Other online sources (e.g. Watts Up With That) point to other sources providing similar messages, including that the year-to-year change in global temperature has been the greatest ever recorded.

Unsurprisingly, it seems that critics of global warming are using this news as evidence in support of the claim that global warming is bunk.

Personally, I think a saner stance to take is to accept that the global warming hype of the past few years has been largely that—hype. It’s been trendy to think that global warming is resulting in a relatively abrupt change in our environment.

While perhaps that’s possible, I think it’s more likely that we’ve gotten lost in the effects of shorter-term cyclical changes which we don’t fully understand…plus perhaps a bit of random noise in the weather data…both of which could be masking any subtler underlying trends.

Throw in an expectation that a changing climate is also expected to drive more volatile weather patterns, and there’s an awful lot of noise in the data that too many people are misreading a signal from.

It is great that climatological extremes have grabbed the attention of the masses, including (finally) the horde of Joe Average Americans, to issues of climate change. However, I fear that to the extent that when shorter-term cycles and randomness reverse, a certain “anti-climate” backlash could emerge.

And all the while, the slower, much less sexy, far more insidious real climate trend that scientists seem to believe is really occurring, will still progress.

It would not be good if prudent preparation for a warmer climate, as well as a societal desire to at least somewhat embrace sustainability or conservation, were lost because of a negative reaction to misplaced hype.

So, is it time to become worried when an anti-liberal rag like the Wall Street Journal runs a story like this? (subscriber link)

Global concentrations of CO2 in 2006, not surprisingly then, reached the highest level since the record-keeping began in 1958, the World Meteorological Organization recently announced in its annual greenhouse-gas bulletin. Based on samples from 40 countries, the level of carbon dioxide in the air reached 381.2 parts per million, up fractionally from 2005—concentrations not seen in 650,000 years, scientists said.

You’d think that when a paper as conservative as the Journal starts talking about CO₂ levels reaching lower Paleolithic levels, perhaps it’s time to shift debate in the U.S. from “is Global Warming” happening (all the while getting hung up over short- and mid-term noise affecting slower-emerging, long-term trends) to a discussion of the most efficient ways to adapt (probably by some mix of limiting future damage and preparing for a generally warmer world)?