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Jen Peters
Geog 378
Global Warming Debate
3-31-03
Has global warming changed the environment radically? – Anti-Kyoto
- There is not enough of a scientific basis to support greenhouse warming - things are too
uncertain.
- More observations, experiments, and calculations need to be done to confirm that the
environment has changed due to global warming.
- Scientists point out that the greatest temperature increases occurred before the major
rise in greenhouse gas concentration.
- In the last decade there has been no temperature trend according to the measurements
by Tiros weather satellites.
- Using a technique that eliminates the effects of urban “heat islands,” a research team
confirmed a rise in temperatures before 1940 and a general decline in the years following.
- There have been reports showing no substantial changes in the global sea-surface
temperature in the past century.
- Since the ocean has a great amount of heat inertia, it should control any atmospheric
climate change.
- Conventional greenhouse warming theories suggest an annual warming of between 0.7
and 2.5 degrees Celsius and we haven’t seen this!!
- The warming that does exist does not take into account natural causes such as volcanoes
and solar variations.
- For the past century, tidal-gauge records suggest that sea level has risen about 0.3
meters, however, the gauges only measure relative sea level and many of the gauges have
dropped due to land sinking.
What To Do about Greenhouse Warming: Look Before You Leap by S. Fred Singer,
Roger Revelle and Chauncey Starr; Cosmos: A Journal of Emerging Issues Vol. 5, No. 2,
Summer 1992 (http://www.sepp.org/glwarm/cosmos.html)
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- According to satellite data, a slight cooling in the climate has occurred in the past 18
years. These satellites are not subject to the urban “heat island” effect.
- Cloud formations, precipitation, oceans and the sun all play a major roles in determining
our climate.
- “98% of total global greenhouse gas emissions are natural (mostly water vapor); only
2% are from man-made sources.”
- “By most accounts, man-made emissions have had no more than a minuscule impact on
the climate. Although the climate has warmed slightly in the last 100 years, 70% percent
of that warming occurred prior to 1940, before the upsurge in greenhouse gas emissions
from industrial processes. (Dr. Robert C. Balling, Arizona State University)”
Global Warming In Brief: The Global Warming Debate -- Updated November, 2000
(http://www.globalwarming.org/brochure.html)
- The oceans play a fundamental role in climate change.
- The Ocean Conveyor is made up of ocean currents that distribute enormous amounts of
heat around the planet.
- The Conveyor warms certain parts of the ocean by as much as 5 degrees Celsius.
- Past climate records have shown that the Conveyor has slowed and shut down several
times in the past creating substantial cooling throughout various areas.
The Ocean and Climate Change Institute: Hot Topics
(http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/climatechange_wef.html)
- The ocean conveyor changes global climate every 15 to 20 years, according to George
Taylor, the state climatologist at Oregon State University and president of the American
Association of State Climatologists.
Climate rides on ocean conveyor belt By Robinson Shaw Sunday, September 26, 1999
(http://www.enn.com/enn-news-archive/1999/09/092699/conveyor_5908.asp)
- Since oceans are the planet’s largest water reservoir, they play a large role in the
evaporation and precipitation cycles determining global rainfall patterns.
- “Scientists have evidence that large, global, abrupt climate changes in the past were
linked to swift reorganizations of the Ocean Conveyor system.”
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- Abrupt climate changes have occurred since the last ice age. The chart below is a
summary of abrupt cooling and warming patterns
The Younger Dryas —about 12,700 years ago,
The 8,200-Year Event —A similar abrupt cooling
average temperatures in the North Atlantic region
occurred 8,200 years ago. It was not so severe and lasted
abruptly plummeted nearly 5°C and remained that
only about a century. But if a similar cooling event
way for 1,300 years before rapidly warming again.
occurred today, it would be catastrophic.
The Medieval Period —An abrupt warming took
The Little Ice Age —The Norse abandoned their
place about 1,000 years ago. It was not nearly so
Greenland settlements when the climate turned abruptly
dramatic as past events, but it nevertheless allowed
colder 700 years ago. Between 1300 and 1850, severe
the Norse to establish settlements in Greenland.
winters had profound agricultural, economic, and political
impacts in Europe.
The Ocean and Climate Change Institute: Hot Topics
(http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/abruptclimate_faq.html#ocean_1)
- The climate is constantly changing, including temperature, precipitation, droughts,
storms and various other weather patterns.
- The global climate is changing and depending on what time scale one is looking at, the
story can be told numerous ways. Example: for a one-hundred year period, the global
climate could be warming up and over the last twenty years is could be warming up, but
at a very low rate.
- Humans will have influences on the atmosphere with increasing populations and rising
industries, but that does not mean that they will be the substantial cause for the warming
of the global climate.
- The climate “did warm greatly between 1880 and 1940 long before CO2 increased
significantly. But in the last two decades, since 1979, weather satellites and balloonborne radiosondes agree that climate has not warmed -- even though CO2 levels rose.”
- Models of the atmosphere are incomplete and have left out ocean currents, atmospheric
aerosol particles and dust into climate models. Now, clouds are the main reason why
models and observations do not agree.
Global Warming Lucency by S. Fred Singer - Washington Times, October 15, 1998
(http://www.sepp.org/glwarm/gwlucency.html)
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Jen Peters
Ocean Conveyor is the Cause for Radical Climate Change
The climate is constantly changing, including temperature, precipitation,
droughts, storms and various other weather patterns. Cloud formations, precipitation,
oceans and the sun all play major roles in determining our climate.
Oceans play one of the most fundamental roles in climate change. The ocean has
a great amount of heat inertia, so it should control any atmospheric climate change. The
Ocean Conveyor, or the global conveyor belt thermo-haline circulation, explains how the
oceans heat is distributed around the globe causing these climate changes.
The Ocean Conveyor works by transporting warm water from the Pacific Ocean
through the Indian Ocean and then through the Atlantic Ocean. The water in the North
Atlantic turns very salty due to evaporation along the way. It then runs into cold water
coming down from the north. This warm water quickly cools and sinks due to its greater
density creating a countercurrent below the surface which carries the cool water back to
the Indian and Pacific Oceans where it began.
Over the last 100 years, there have been four distinct periods; two when the
conveyor was very active and two when it was quite inactive. Global temperatures
correspond with the conveyors activity. The Pacific is the globes largest terrestrial heat
source. When this large body of water warms, so does the temperature. The Ocean
Conveyor warms certain parts of the ocean by as much as 5 degrees Celsius.
According to George Taylor, the state climatologist at Oregon State University
and president of the American Association of State Climatologists states that, “the ocean
conveyor changes global climate every 15 to 20 years.”
Sources
The Ocean and Climate Change Institute: Hot Topics
(http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/climatechange_wef.html)
Climate rides on ocean conveyor belt By Robinson Shaw Sunday, September 26, 1999
(http://www.enn.com/enn-news-archive/1999/09/092699/conveyor_5908.asp)
The Ocean and Climate Change Institute: Hot Topics
(http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/abruptclimate_faq.html#ocean_1)
UNEP – Potential Impacts of Climate Change
http://www.grida.no/climate/vital/32.htm
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