New evidence casts doubt on global warming

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Claims are "based on false data," international team of scientists says

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by Robert Matthews

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Fresh doubt has been cast on evidence for global warming following the discovery that a key method of measuring temperature change has exaggerated the warming rate by almost 40 percent.

Studies of temperature records dating back more than a century have seemed to indicate a rise in global temperature of around 0.5C, with much of it occurring since the late 1970s. This has led many scientists to conclude global warming is under way, with the finger of blame usually pointed at man-made emissions of such greenhouse gases as carbon dioxide.

Now an international team of scientists, including researchers from the Met Office in Bracknell, Berkshire, United Kingdom, has found serious discrepancies in the temperature measurements, suggesting that the amount of global warming is much less than previously believed.

Measuring water, not air

The concern focuses on the temperature of the atmosphere over the oceans, which cover almost three-quarters of the Earth's surface. While scientists use standard weather station instruments to detect warming on land, they have been forced to rely on the crews of ships to make measurements over the vast ocean regions.

Crews have taken the temperature by dipping buckets into the sea or using water flowing into the engine intakes. Scientists have assumed there is a simple link between the temperature of seawater and that of the air above it.

However, after analyzing years of data from scientific buoys in the Pacific that measure sea and air temperatures simultaneously, the team has found no evidence of a simple link. Instead, the seawater measurements have exaggerated the amount of global warming over the seas, with the real temperature having risen less than half as fast during the 1970s than the standard measurements suggest.

Reporting their findings in the influential journal Geophysical Research Letters, the scientists say the exact cause of the discrepancy is not known. One possibility is that the atmosphere responded faster than the sea to cooling events such as volcanic eruptions.

A big cut

The findings have major implications for the climate change debate because sea temperature measurements are a key part of global warming calculations. According to the team, replacing the standard seawater data with the appropriate air data produces a big cut in the overall global warming rate during the last 20 years, from around 0.18C per decade to 0.13C.

This suggests that the widely quoted global warming figure used to persuade governments to take action on greenhouse gas emissions exaggerates the true warming rate by almost 40 percent. The team is now calling for climate experts to switch from seawater data to sea-air temperature measurements.

One member of the team, David Parker, of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at the Met Office, said the discovery of the discrepancy "shows we don't understand everything, and that we need better observations--all branches of science are like that." Yet according to Parker, the new results do not undermine the case for global warming: "It is raising questions about the interpretation of the sea-surface data."

Even so, the findings will be seized on by skeptics as more evidence that scientists have little idea about the current rate of global warming, let alone its future rate. Climate experts are still trying to explain why satellites measuring the temperature of the Earth have detected little sign of global warming, despite taking measurements during supposedly the warmest period on record.

Some researchers suspect the fault may again lie with the ground-based temperature measurements. They say many of the data come from stations surrounded by growing urban sprawl, whose warmth could give a misleading figure. A study of data taken around Vienna, Austria, between 1951 and 1996 found that the air temperature rose by anything from zero to 0.6C, depending on precisely where the measurements were made.

-- libs are idiots (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), April 13, 2001

Answers

http://www.john-daly.com/

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), April 13, 2001.

Buddy

I thought your link was golf related..........LOL!!

It wasn't......

Deano

-- Dean (deano@luvthebeach.com), April 13, 2001.

LOL! It didn't occur to me. The guy just got a new domain name. The old link was: http://www.microtech.com.au/daly/

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), April 13, 2001.

ISSUE 2146 Tuesday 10 April 2001

Study says warming could fend off ice age By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

Sir Fred Hoyle Homepage - Cardiff University Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe Homepage - Cardiff University School of Mathematics Astronomy/Space Science Research Programme - Cardiff University

THE greenhouse effect caused by human activity could help protect the planet from a forthcoming ice age, says a study that has angered environmentalists.

The Earth's natural and stable state is the dry and cold of an ice age, say Professor Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, of Cardiff University, in the latest Astrophysics and Space Science Journal. They believe that the water and dust thrown into the atmosphere by a comet impact - a body more than 1,000 metres across - every 100,000 years or so create a powerful greenhouse effect.

They predict that the current warming will persist for up to 10,000 years, after which the world will enter another ice age. But a large greenhouse effect from burning fossil fuels and car exhausts could help offset that threat.

Professor Wickramasinghe said: "Without the greenhouse effect, the Earth would drift into an ice age. It's a minor evil compared with what we are talking about in an ice age. Perhaps, at some time in the not so distant future, if an ice age becomes imminent, we should step up rather than decrease our greenhouse gas emissions."

His comments were condemned as "irresponsible and naive" by Greenpeace. A Friends of the Earth spokesman added: "It's pretty clear that these findings go against scientific consensus. Most people realise that climate change is being caused by people and that it could be disastrous for the human race.

"A few people might be distracted by these comments but I think most people are aware that we need to reduce emissions. It's a case of one scientist saying one thing and 7,000 saying another - I know who I'd side with." The professors often court controversy: for example, they believe BSE was imported from outer space.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qxJqdtb9&atmo =qxJqdtb9&pg=/et/01/4/10/ngree10.html

-- Cave Man (caves@are.us), April 13, 2001.

His comments were condemned as "irresponsible and naive" by Greenpeace. A Friends of the Earth spokesman added: "It's pretty clear that these findings go against scientific consensus. Most people realise that climate change is being caused by people and that it could be disastrous for the human race.

"A few people might be distracted by these comments but I think most people are aware that we need to reduce emissions. It's a case of one scientist saying one thing and 7,000 saying another - I know who I'd side with."

Sorry Greanpeace, but it ain't that many scientists supporting your view. At least no that many who know what they're talking about.

Greenpeace is irresponsible and naive.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), April 13, 2001.

I love making up these stories so the loser libs look like the idiots that they are.

-- libs are idiots (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), April 13, 2001.

http://www.anxietycenter.com/warning.htm

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), April 13, 2001.

J A N U A R Y 1 9 9 8

"Climate change" is popularly understood to mean greenhouse warming, which, it is predicted, will cause flooding, severe windstorms, and killer heat waves. But warming could lead, paradoxically, to drastic cooling -- a catastrophe that could threaten the survival of civilization

by William H. Calvin

ONE of the most shocking scientific realizations of all time has slowly been dawning on us: the earth's climate does great flip-flops every few thousand years, and with breathtaking speed. We could go back to ice-age temperatures within a decade....

http://www. theatlantic.com/issues/98jan/climate.htm

-- Cave Man (caves@are.us), April 13, 2001.