The natural fluctuation of global temperatures

















1922: Global warming

























1975: Global cooling









Pre-2007: Global warming
Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research. A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes. Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures. [Telegraph 18/7/04]
They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer. [BBC 7/6/04]Global warming and melting polar ice caps are not just problems here on Earth. Mars is facing similar global changes, researchers say, with temperatures across the red planet rising by around 0.65 degrees over the last few decades. [Register]
For about 300 years Jupiter's banded atmosphere has shown a remarkable feature to telescopic viewers, a large swirling storm system known as The Great Red Spot. In 2006, another red storm system appeared, actually seen to form as smaller whitish oval-shaped storms merged and then developed the curious reddish hue.Now, Jupiter has a third red spot, again produced from a smaller whitish storm. ... Jupiter's recent outbreak of red spots is likely related to large scale climate change as the gas giant planet is getting warmer near the equator. [NASA]

Neptune has been getting brighter since around 1980; furthermore, infrared measurements of the planet since 1980 show that the planet has been warming steadily from 1980 to 2004. As they say on Neptune, global warming has become an inconvenient truth. [World Climate Report]



























2007+: Global cooling
Dr. Kenneth Tapping is worried about the sun. Solar activity comes in regular cycles, but the latest one is refusing to start. Sunspots have all but vanished, and activity is suspiciously quiet. The last time this happened was 400 years ago -- and it signaled a solar event known as a "Maunder Minimum," along with the start of what we now call the "Little Ice Age."Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, says it may be happening again. Overseeing a giant radio telescope he calls a "stethoscope for the sun," Tapping says, if the pattern doesn't change quickly, the earth is in for some very chilly weather. [ICSC 2/9/08]

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. [DailyTech 2/27/2008]

IPCC computer predictions of warming versus real-world temperature data (blue and green lines):

Arctic ice extent was 30 per cent greater on August 11, 2008 than it was on the August 12, 2007:

Recent satellite observations from the Arctic indicate that spring ice melting is beginning at a lower rate than normal this year. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the area of ice-covered ocean has decreased only about 750,000 km2 from its peak value at the end of February, compared to a normal decline of 1.1 million km2 by late April. If this trend continues, the annual ice melt in 2009 may be less than in recent years, and the late summer Arctic ice extent may rebound from its well-publicized downtrend. [stormx 4/22/2009]

[A] 20-member contingent [of scientists] from Canada, the U.S., Germany, and Italy - spent one month exploring the North Pole as well as never-before measured regions of the Arctic. Among their findings: Rather than finding newly formed ice to be two metres thick, "we measured ice thickness up to four metres," stated a spokesperson for the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research of the Helmholtz Association, Germany's largest scientific organization. [National Post 5/4/09]
In 2008-2009 the ice melt across during the Antarctic summer (October-January) was the lowest ever recorded in the satellite history:

The period between about 1645 and 1715 was particularly cold and coincides with the Maunder Minimum, where only about 50 sunspots appeared, compared to an expectation of from 40,000 to 50,000. [New American][In 2008 the Sun] hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity. [BBC]










NASA's press office "marginalized or mischaracterized" studies on global warming between 2004 and 2006, the agency's own internal watchdog concluded. In a report released Monday [4/4/2008], NASA's inspector general office called it "inappropriate political interference" by political appointees in the press office. [PhysOrg] A simple method of manipulating surface temperature data which does not involve rocket science is to place temperature monitors in areas prone to heating or next to heat outlets.
Okay, take notes, there will be a quiz at the end of class.

First of all, greenhouse effect is not a bad thing. Without it, our planet would not support life as we know it, as the average temperature would be too cold to support liquid water.

Water vapor is the single most potent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, trapping more heat than carbon dioxide and methane put together. Estimates of the impact of water vapor on global warming vary widely from a minimum of 60% of all greenhouse effect to 98% of all greenhouse effect, but even at the minimum of 60%, that leaves 40% of greenhouse effect to be shared by all other chemicals combined, including carbon dioxide and methane (which has ten times the greenhouse capacity pound for pound as carbon dioxide).

Now then, looking at Carbon Dioxide, we find that only .117% of atmospheric carbon dioxide is directly attributable to human technology such as automobiles. .117% is a rather small amount. If we were to measure out .117% of a football field, it comes out to 4.212 inches, barely long enough to get off the touchdown line.

So, if humans ceased all technological activity, we would still see 99.883% of the carbon dioxide remain in the atmosphere, assuming all other factors remain stable (which is, of course, silly.)

Over the last few years, there have been very careful studies in Antarctica which clearly show global temperatures rising together with atmospheric carbon dioxide. Global warmers have sent me several of these research papers with the usual "Ah HA!" type comment, but on reading the papers it is clear that the global warmers stopped at the abstract, because what these recent studies show is that Carbon Dioxide levels increased AFTER the rise in global temperature. Let me re-state that. Studies of Antarctic ice show that the Earth would get warmer, and THEN Carbon Dioxide levels would increase. And there is nothing at all mysterious about this. Carbon dioxide is a very unique chemical in that it is more effectively dissolved in liquids in lower temperatures. Normally, air will hold more water when warm, sugar will dissolve in water more quickly when warm, but carbon dioxide will escape from solution as the temperature rises, which is why your beer will soak your shirt if it is too warm when you open it.

So, as the sun warms the Earth (as recorded in the ice) carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans and lakes bubbles into the sky like too-warm soda pop fizzing over the top of the glass, and as the Antarctic ice reveals, winds up in the atmosphere.

Now, this is not to say that I think we should waste our planet's resources. Quite the contrary, I think we need to be very careful of what we have, because we are not likely to get a replacement planet any time soon. But the global warming "hype" is exactly that, hype to sell products and policies. If you want to do something about the damage to the planet caused by oil, STOP THE WARS BEING FOUGHT OVER IT!
Sixteen gallons of oil. That's how much the average American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan consumes on a daily basis -- either directly, through the use of Humvees, tanks, trucks, and helicopters, or indirectly, by calling in air strikes. Multiply this figure by 162,000 soldiers in Iraq, 24,000 in Afghanistan, and 30,000 in the surrounding region (including sailors aboard U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf) and you arrive at approximately 3.5 million gallons of oil: the daily petroleum tab for U.S. combat operations in the Middle East war zone. [Pacific Free Press]The [Iraq] war is responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) since March 2003. To put this in perspective, CO2 released by the war to date equals the emissions from putting 25 million more cars on the road in the US this year.[climateandcapitalism.com]







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