Nay-saying Experts Weigh in on Climate Change

By staff reporter LI WUZHOU

Fewer migrant birds can be seen in Kashmir, an effect of global warming.               China Foto Press

GLOBAL warming has gone from fringe rumor to center stage all over the world, but questioning voices never cease. Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was attacked and mocked for data that was not rigorous, intentionally deleted or ignored. Some people believe current research methodologies used to study global warming leave plenty of room for doubt in the conclusions. There are lingering uncertainties. To what extent do human activities influence it? Are carbon dioxide emissions at the heart of the crisis? At one extreme some even deride global warming as a false proposition. Meanwhile more open-minded skeptics simply want further clarification.

Joe Average Speaks Out

Established in 1988, the IPCC convenes thousands of the world’s most outstanding scientists. It proposes scientific appraisals and policy suggestions based on collecting, organizing and summarizing research achievements on climate change. The assessments it releases are widely recognized and constitute what would have to be considered the mainstream point of view nowadays.

The IPCC has by now published four assessment reports (AR). The AR1 in 1990 pointed out the dangers of increasing temperature and verified the scientific basis of climate change. The AR2 in 1996 noted that “evidence clearly proves the influence of human activities on the climate.” The AR3 in 2001 took the view that “new and more concrete evidence” was further demonstration of human impact on global warming, with a “66 percent probability.”

The AR4 pointed out that newer, even more convincing evidence existed for the tangibility of global warming. Observations on all continents and oceans have yielded data establishing how many natural systems are affected by regional changes in climate, especially increasing temperatures. The latest research also pinpointed the increase in the density of carbon dioxide and methane to the post-Industrial Revolution era, whose level of human activity outstripped any that came before. In addition, simulations indicate that the rise in average temperatures over the past 50 years was probably attributable to human generated greenhouse gases. The reliability of this conclusion was deemed to be 90 percent or higher.

In February 2010 environment ministers of various countries attended the UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum in Bali, Indonesia. The Nusa Dua Declaration signatories reiterated their recognition and support of IPCC’s conclusion, i.e. climate change is the result of human activity.

Skeptics on Tap

Though winning wide support, the IPCC AR4 has many doubters in the expert and professional ranks. It is reported now, according to better models, that the statement that the Himalaya glaciers will disappear in 2035 is incorrect. The warning that 55 percent of the Netherlands will be under water is also disputed and has been amended to 26 percent.

Ding Zhongli, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, criticized IPCC exclusion of almost all data gathered by Chinese researchers. “Chinese territory covers several climatic zones, including the roof of the world,” Ding complained, “I am really curious about how China’s data would influence the IPCC’s conclusions.”

Cheng Jicheng, professor at the School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, believes that carbon dioxide, as an important part of the carbon cycle in the earth system, exists not only in the atmospheric subsystem, but also in Earth’s crust, mantle, and geological, biological and oceanic subsystems. These subsystems act as both carbon sources and sinks, meaning they can absorb as well as release carbon dioxide. This was overlooked by the IPCC and its supporters.

Lenny Smith, a professor of statistics at the London School of Economics, doubts the AR4 conclusions, feeling they overstate the results calculated by the data model.

Meteorologist Antony Watt used to be a hard-core supporter of global warming theory, but changed his mind after on-site investigations of 534 meteorological stations. According to the standards used by the U.S. authorities, 56 percent of the stations reviewed made reprehensible errors (higher than five degrees C.), and 87 percent were disqualified by virtue of errors higher than one degree. The measurement apparatus were located near air conditioning units or waste treatment plants.

As the AR4 conclusions are queried by many experts, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and IPCC chief Pachauri authorized an independent investigation under the Amsterdam-based InterAcademy Council (IAC). The investigatory team reviewed management structures and working procedures of the IPCC. The survey results released in late August declared that the AR4 had “been a success,” and the conclusion that human activity was creating climate change well-founded.

Inference Matters

Evidence popularly trotted out to establish global warming is the melting glaciers in the polar regions, but what we infer from this may be more important than the facts. It was predicted that sea levels would rise and unfold a chain of catastrophes. However, many scholars believe that the thawing of polar glaciers doesn’t necessarily entail the warming of the entire planet.

Scientists at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC ) found that the rapid melting of the North Pole glacier is mainly the result of strong arctic winds, and the effects of global warming will not be as decisive as people imagined.

German scientist Mojib Latif, senior expert at the IPCC and professor at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel University, believes that signs of global warming have been obvious for the past decade. Hadley Center for Climate Change came to a similar conclusion. According to Latif’s observations, the temperature of the earth rose by 0.7 degrees C. between the 1970s and the late 1990s, and then stabilized. There is no record of new temperature peaks being reached since 1998.

Claude Allègre is an eminent geologist and former French Minister of National Education from 1997 to 2000. Earlier this year, he published a book titled The Climate Imposture, directly aimed at the IPCC and accusing climate change of being a false proposition. He believes the entire world is running in circles over a “lie that lacks evidence.” But many people are enraged by his opinion. Over 400 climate experts in France published an open letter refuting Claude Allègre’s stance and confirming the indubitable reality of global warming.

Carbon Dioxide… Off the Hook?

The cause-and-effect relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming is widely doubted by scientists.

Qian Weihong, professor at the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, compared the density of carbon dioxide with all the available temperature data of the last four centuries. He found the rise in temperature began 100 years earlier than the first occurrence of major carbon dioxide emission. “That gap of 100 years caused us to rethink the cause-and-effect relationship.” Qian reached another conclusion after further research: the sharp increase in temperatures witnessed over the last 20 years owes its existence to “big nature” – oceans and solar radiation.

According to Liu Zhonghui, assistant professor at the Department of Earth Science, Hong Kong University, popular opinion is that just as humans have created disastrous global warming conditions, they will be able to resolve them. But this opinion is based on the meteorological record of the past century. “Seen from a longer period, the density of carbon dioxide was 2,000 ppm about 40 million years ago, while currently it’s only 380 ppm. The earth didn’t perish at that time; instead, living beings transformed and evolved.” Research on Qinghai Lake discovered that the earth was warmer 1,000 years ago, in the absence of any industrial pollution.

Kirill Kondratyev, an academician at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), insists water dominates the earth’s climate changes, in all three of its forms: vapor, hydrosphere and cloud cover, and ice and snow. He holds the view that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, have little influence on climate, and their impact is one-100th that of water.

Kondratyev is not alone in declaring greenhouse gases innocent. Fellows at RAS, Vladimir Bashkircev and Galina Mashnich, believe that changes in the solar system are the primary source of our climate woes. Global warming and re-cooling are reactions to changes in the strength and quantity of sun spots. As the sun enters a period of decline in solar flares (the next predicted to occur within decades) the temperature of our earth will descend accordingly.