GLOBAL WARMING - FACT OR FICTION

Introduction to Global Warming:

Greenhouse warming has existed for quite some time, arguably since Earth was first formed.
Greenhouse gases, or gases conducive to the greenhouse effect, act like a blanket or the panes of glass
in a greenhouse's walls; they reflect the heat the earth would radiate into space back down towards the
earth, holding it in. You see, the balance of heat on earth is maintained by different processes. Solar
radiation approaches the earth, and clouds and the atmosphere reflect some of it back into space. More
radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, clouds, and the surface of the earth. Then the earth radiates
the heat back as infrared radiation. To maintain a certain, constant temperature, the rate that Earth
emits energy into space must equal the rate it absorbs the sun's energy. The greenhouse effect's refusal
to allow a certain amount of this terrestrial radiation to pass keeps the Earth's average surface
temperature at about 60F (15C). If there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, most of the
heat radiated by the Earth's surface would be lost directly to outer space, and the planet's temperature
would be 0F (-18C), too cold for most forms of life (Greenhouse).

There are several atmospheric gases that act as greenhouse gases (GHGs). The most infamous is carbon
dioxide, which is emitted through the respiration of humans and animals, the burning of fossil fuel,
deforestation, and other changes in land use. Carbon dioxide is the main focus of many greenhouse gas
sanctions, since it is the greenhouse gas that has most been released into the atmosphere. However,
some other gases may have a greater effect upon climate than CO2. If one examines research into the
possible warming effect of other GHGs relative to CO2, one finds that over a 100-year period, there are
gases present in far smaller amounts that have a much more concentrated effect. Methane, a gas
produced by livestock (flatulence), oil and gas production, coal mining, solid waste, and wet rice
agriculture, has 11 times more warming potential per volume than CO2 (Science), or 25 times more per
molecule (Clarkson). Nitrous oxide, produced mainly in connection with current agricultural practices,
has 270 times more warming potential per volume over this period than CO2 (Science).
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the gases used as refrigerants and in aerosol spray dispensers that were
banned some time back due to their ozone depletion potential, have 3400-7100 times more warming
potential per volume than CO2 (Science). Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and hydrofluorocarbons
(HFCs), the CFC substitutes, have a slightly smaller warming potential at 1200-1600 times larger per
volume than CO2 (Science).

And so, as one might infer, studies are showing that additions of GHGs may cause the earth to get
warmer than it naturally would. This is what is referred to as anthropogenic (human-caused) global
warming. Many times, the terms global warming and climate change are used interchangeably. (We will
do the same, for continuity's sake.) But, this is not correct and the concepts are different. Climate
change includes precipitation, wind patterns, and temperature. It also refers to the whole climate, not
just weather conditions of one place. Global warming is an indication of climate change. It is an example
of a climate change that has the atmosphere's average temperature increase. Earth has experienced
much warming and much cooling throughout its history. There is a great deal of debate as to whether or
not the earth is experiencing a globally warming climate change and, if it is, whether the underlying
causes are man-made or natural. Different research has given different results.
However, even when greenhouse gases were arguably at a stable level, before the onset of the
Industrial Revolution, Earth's climate tended to fluctuate widely. A period from 5,000 to 3,000 BC (when
civilization began) is called the Climatic Optimum and another period from 900 - 1200 AD is called the
Little Climatic Optimum or the Medieval Climatic Optimum, both so named for their unusually warm
temperatures. Likewise, a period from 1550 to 1850 is known as the Little Ice Age for its unusually cold
temperatures (Pidwirny). At this time, glaciers in southern Norway reached their greatest extent in 9000
years (Keigwin). With such large variations possible, it is difficult to know where the next natural
fluctuation could take us. Perhaps those who find that global climate is warming are simply measuring a
natural fluctuation. Or perhaps a natural fluctuation is masking the real effect of GHGs on the globe.

Global Warming: Big Questions, Big Research

As mentioned previously, there is a great debate over whether or not humans are causing global
warming. Some activists and researchers have resorted to name-calling or accusing the opposing side of
having "sold out" to one special interest or another. As mentioned previously, we have attempted to cut
away the personal attacks between the opposing sides, search for the kernel of truth (or logic, where
truth cannot be discerned), and get down to the heart of the matter.

In order to properly read any of the reports or research on global climate change, one must keep in
mind that nothing (or almost nothing) is certain. Everything has a certain degree of uncertainty, a
certain flavor of the unknown. There really is no conclusive evidence of global warming, and many
scientists in favor of the global warming hypothesis say that it will be a decade or more before it is
possible to develop any substantial evidence. As an anonymous senior climate modeler has said about
global warming, "The more you learn, and the more you understand that you don't understand very
much" (Kerr - Greenhouse Forecasting). Global climate is by nature always fluctuating, and that only
adds to the confusion about anthropogenic global warming. If there were an anthropogenic global
warming, we couldn't be sure what temperature we were supposed to be at, as climate shifts are a
natural part of life on Earth. Compounding that confusion is natural variability, which is always working
to confuse researchers just as they come close to attributing a perceived change in average temperature
to some external factor, such as atmospheric composition (GHGs) or solar variation. One reason for this
variability is the long adjustment time of the oceans' heat storage and current systems. It is estimated to
take several hundred years for water to circulate from the deepest portions of the oceans back to the
surface. This means that if, for example, a pool of extra cold water is singled out and stored in the
depths by some freak mechanism, it could stay there a century or two before resurfacing and producing
a local, cool climate change (Clarkson, North, and Schmandt).

Since no one can create another Earth (let alone one that behaves exactly like ours) and perform
atmosphere-altering experiments on it, we are left with the alternative of theorizing based on
observations. In other words, the only way we can purport to know anything about what might be
changing in our climate is by playing with data, such as records of temperature, borehole
measurements, etc., and seeing what scenarios the data will agree with.

Most of the body of global warming theory is based on computerized climate models called global
circulation models or GCMs, for they are almost the only tools global warming researchers have. GCMs
are difficult to make as making them properly involves a deep-rooted understanding of the way the
atmosphere works and how its actions are interconnected with other planetary bodies, such as the
oceans or the terrestrial biosphere. But our understanding of the inner workings of the atmosphere and
the ways it relates to other planetary bodies is not very good. Renowned NASA climate modeler James
Hansen, the man whose summer 1988 congressional testimony kicked off the climate change debate,
states in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: "The forcings [outside factors] that drive
long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate changes."
One of the fundamental illustrations of chaos, the butterfly effect, displays the interconnectedness of
the atmosphere system when it states that a butterfly fluttering through the air in China could cause
rain in New York the following spring.

GCMs are made by formulating mathematical descriptions of the interrelationships between the
atmosphere/ocean/biosphere/cryosphere system and conducting numerical experiments. They certainly
are unable to form a mathematical description based on the kind of interconnections, or feedbacks, that
the butterfly effect would suggest. Indeed, Michael Schlesinger, modeler at the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign, tells us that "in the climate system, there are 14 orders of magnitude, from the
planetary scale--which is 40 million meters--down to the scale of one of the little aerosol particles on
which water vapor can change phase to a liquid [cloud particle]--which is a fraction of a millionth of a
millimeter." Of these 14 orders of magnitude, only the two largest (the planetary scale and the scale of
weather disturbances) can currently be included in models. Schlesinger notes that, to include the third
order of magnitude (the scale of thunderstorms, at about 50 km resolution) a computer a thousand
times faster would be necessary, "a teraflops machine that maybe we'll have in 5 years." Including all
orders of magnitude would require 1036-1037 times more computing power (Kerr - Greenhouse
Forecasting).

Because GCMs are so hard to make, often they account for the same processes differently; two models
may have two different mathematical descriptions of what effect clouds have on warming, for example.
Processes with a resolution smaller than a few hundred kilometers cannot be represented directly in the
models, but instead must be parameterized, or expressed in terms of the larger scale motions, since the
models do not have the resolution necessary to properly represent the actions of important weather
systems such as tropical and extratropical cyclones. To offset this downfall, a few parameterizations
(such as horizontal eddy viscosity, large-scale precipitation cumulus convection, gravity wave drag, etc.)
are calibrated. Added to these parameterizations are adjustments commonly referred to as flux
corrections, and they are an important "fudge factor" for the GCMs. These factors keep the models from
floating off into nowhere. As Kerr (Model) stated, "Climate modelers have been 'cheating' for so long it's
almost become respectable." Through these parameterizations, GCMs attempt to represent certain
climate features reasonably well, but it is possible that they may be getting the right numbers but have
the wrong underlying reason for them. As a result, such models' ability to simulate climate change
properly would be negatively impacted.

Lately, a model has been designed and tested at the National Center for Atmospheric Research to
eliminate the flux corrections. This model better incorporates the effects of ocean eddies, not by
shrinking the scale, but by parameterization, passing the effects of these invisible eddies onto larger
model scales using a more realistic means of mixing hear through the ocean that any earlier model did.
This model doesn't drift off into chaos even after 300 years of running. This model gives a 2oC rise in
temperature due to a CO2 doubling. (Some of the more popular GCMs assume that the concentration of
CO2 will double in 70 years or quadruple in 140 years and use the assumption to try to predict what the
climate will be like in decades or even centuries based on that doubling or quadrupling.) This figure is on
the low side of estimates and puts the model's sensitivity to greenhouse gases near the low end of
current model estimates (Kerr - Model).

GCMs are very sensitive to the representations of the effects of clouds and oceans, as their effects are
complex and not understood well. While some GCMs are being specially made to simulate water
behavior in clouds, limited vertical resolution (i.e., they don't go up far enough) and coarse horizontal
resolution (i.e., the cloud activity of large areas of the Earth is averaged together and this average is
used for the entire area) prevent even these models from accurately covering thin clouds and some
cloud formation processes. Most early simulations were run with fixed cloud distributions based on
observed cloud cover data, but these fixed levels didn't allow any feedback between cloud distributions
and changing atmospheric/oceanic temperatures and motions. Problems in cloud feedback are seen as
the Achilles heel of GCMs. Likewise, ocean representations were initially crude; in some early models, a
swamp (stagnant, heat-absorbing, heat and water vapor-releasing body of water) was used as the
oceanic model. Later models had a 50 meter thick slab of ocean that allowed summertime heat storage
and wintertime heat release. While not including ocean currents (caused by the movement of heat to
colder areas of ocean), these models attempted to represent seasonal responses to temperature in the
upper ocean, but the lack of currents resulted in tropical oceans being too hot and polar regions too
cold. Even today's most sophisticated, computationally-intense climate models are still just numerically
experimental approximations of the exceedingly complex atmosphere/ocean/biosphere/cryosphere
system. And yet, these GCMs are the basis of global warming theory, if for no other reason than the
near-impossibility of conducting physical experiments at the global level (Cotton & Pielke).

The main means of testing these mathematical models of the climate involves taking climate data from
previous years, running the programs, and seeing if the computer results are close to the actual present
climatic data. The problem there is that the data are not exactly accurate. When the predicted global
warming ranges from .5oC to 4oC, data accuracy is important, to say the least. Satellite data (view some)
is called insubstantial by some researchers for the short length of its records, but Phil Jones states that
the shortness even of global-scale surface temperature records (about 100 years) aids the uncertainty in
the field. Interestingly enough, current surface temperature measurements have shown a .5oC warming
over the past century, but satellite measurements for the past fifteen years (satellite data has only been
available for nineteen years) shows a slight downward trend. Satellite trends in temperature vary
smoothly, while in some surface data, one region will appear to be warming while those regions around
it appear to cool. According to Dr. Roy Spencer, a NASA scientist, "We see major excursions [from the
trend] due to volcanic eruptions like [Mount] Pinatubo and ocean current phenomena like El Nio, but
overall the trend is about 0.05 degrees Celsius per decade cooling" (Horack and Spencer). Earlier this
year, it was realized that the satellite data needed correction for orbital decay, or "downward drift," in
the satellites that cause erroneous cooling to show in the data. However, even after a careful
readjustment the trend is still 0.01oC per decade of cooling, while weather balloons show -0.02 and -
0.07oC per decade in Britain and America respectively, and British surface data show a warming of
0.15oC per decade. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate model predictions
estimate surface warming to be 0.18oC per decade and warming in the deep layer measured by
satellites and weather balloons to be about 30% faster, or +0.23oC per decade. None of the satellites or
weather balloons show values anywhere near this, not even when the adjusted satellite record is
updated through July 1998 to show a trend of +0.04oC per decade, which is still only 1/6 of the IPCC-
predicted rate (Spencer).

Even while the satellites may need adjustments in their data for changes in orbit, this data is still more
accurate than surface data. Satellites do not have anything in their surroundings to skew the data. On
the other hand, many sources of error exist here on Earth. Things as seemingly minuscule as variation in
the color and type of paint used for the instrument shelters can skew data slightly, for different types
and colors of paint absorb small but differing amounts of solar radiation. As another example, the urban
heat island effect is known to make cities warmer at night and milder during the day. The growth of
urban areas during this century has resulted in a 0.4oC bias in the US climate record, making the amount
of warming appear larger than it was (Cotton and Pielke). Thomas Karl, climatologist at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), demonstrated in a 1989 paper that, if surface
temperatures are corrected for the urban heat island effect, the years around 1940 emerge as the
warmest, with readings since then showing a downward trend (Crandall). If this bias exists in the global
climate data set, its use to represent a wider geographic record for climate change studies will be
misleading.

Another largely-ignored factor affecting temperature data is solar variation, or periodic changes in the
brightness of the sun based on sunspots and the like. Some climate modelers say that the Sun only
varies with an 11-year cycle, and this period is too fast for the climate system to respond to. Hoyt points
out that explosive volcanic eruptions have a one to two year long radiative forcing which does appear to
affect climate, and so solar variance should have a substantial impact on climate. James Hansen, the
famed NASA modeler, put it this way: "Anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs), which are well-
measured, cause a strong positive (warming) forcing. But other, poorly measured, anthropogenic
forcings, especally changes of atmospheric aerosols, clouds, and other land-use patterns, cause a
negative forcing that tends to offset greenhouse warming. One consequence of this partial balance is
that the natural forcing due to solar irradiance changes may play a larger role in long-term climate
change than inferred from GHGs alone" (NASA's). Current research by Daniel Cayan and Warren White
of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography gives evidence that "the waxing and waning of the sun" may
be behind current climate change. They studied North Pacific sea surface temperatures for the past 50
years and noticed that their pattern looked remarkably like that of satellite records of solar irradiance
(Kerr - New). Based on this, it would seem logical to include these effects in GCMs, but few researchers
do.

Moreover, any calculated warming would be reduced by this cooling effect of volcanoes. Even though
we cannot predict the occurrence of a volcanic eruption, we have sufficient statistical information about
past eruptions to estimate their average cooling effect; yet this is one of several factors not specifically
considered by the IPCC (Singer - Scientific) and many other models.

If these models are wrong in their assumptions about climate, then everything that is thought to be
known because of them is wrong. If, however, their assumptions are right, but essential factors or
effects within the global system are being omitted from study, then GCMs thought to be wrong may
actually need only an enlightened tweaking. Unfortunately, enlightenment is difficult to come by in this
field. Many, many things are still unknown.

Effects of Global Warming on Our Everyday Lives

Another area where uncertainty rears its head is in the realm of the "real life" effects of global warming.
The possible effects of global warming have been played out in the media: hurricanes, plagues, a great
increase in sea level, etc. Some scientists refute these claims. But, again, since the climate models can
tell us little with much certainty, we can not know for certain if a global warming would have these
effects or not.

Some researchers, such as those involved with the IPCC, claim that global warming will lead to an
increase in violent storms such as hurricanes and typhoons. But, as S. Fred Singer points out (Scientific),
warming should actually lead to a reduction in these storms as the equator-to-pole temperature
differences diminish, for it is this atmospheric temperature heterogeneity that drives storms and makes
them strong.

Record-breaking temperatures are given by others as a consequence of global warming. But they
actually are the consequence of having records to break; on an average day, 2 million square miles (the
equivalent of an area 1400 miles by 1400 miles) of the Earth are experiencing weather which breaks
100-year-old records. Indeed, the probability of breaking a weather record is equal to 1/n, where n is
the number of years for which records exist (Hoyt).

Some, such as virologist Robert Shope, do say that warming could cause the mosquito carrying dengue
fever and yellow fever to migrate northward, causing epidemics in North America. Cholera (which is
known to live in sea-borne plankton), he says, could become epidemic in America as changes in marine
ecology favor the growth and transmission of the pathogen. Rita Colwell, Paul Epstein, and Timothy
Ford, another group of researchers, went a step further and blamed an El Nio warming of the Pacific at
least partially for a 1991 Latin American cholera epidemic affecting 500,000 and killing almost 5,000. But
cholera is known to spread from humans to other humans through food, water, and feces; this is why
cholera epidemics appear when public health and sanitation break down. CDC medical epidemiologist
Fred Angulo stated that "We had a powder keg ready to explode, an entire continent in which the
sanitation and public water supplies and everything was primed for transmission of this organism once it
was introduced," possibly by ships emptying bilge water near fishing areas. He adds that cholera has
been introduced into the US several times in the past few years; it didn't spread "because we have a
public health and sanitation infrastructure that prevents it."

As for the mosquito-borne diseases, epidemiologist Mark L. Wilson of the University of Michigan-Ann
Arbor says that the predictions suffer from many levels of uncertainty. No one disputes that weather
patterns have an impact: "There's reason to believe that if it's an extremely rainy spring, summer
mosquito populations will increase," but he and his colleagues point out that no one knows just how
patterns of temperature and rainfall will change in a warmer world, or how these changes will affect the
biology of diseases. Paul Epstein has attributed Latin American dengue epidemics in 1994 and 1995 to El
Nio and global warming, but experts on dengue at the Pan American Health Organization and the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say these epidemics resulted from a breakdown in programs
to eradicate the specific species of mosquito responsible and its subsequent return. The epidemics once
caused by mosquitoes in the US have vanished due to mosquito control, eradication programs, piped-
water systems, and lifestyle changes (we have good housing, air conditioning, and television to keep us
inside, and screens to keep the mosquitoes outside). They note as an example 1995's Mexican dengue
pandemic that stopped at the Rio Grande, with over 2000 confirmed cases in Reynosa, Mexico, but only
7 across the river in Texas. And so it is a bit early to say, as the IPCC did, that "climate change is likely to
have wide-ranging and mostly adverse impacts on human health, with significant loss of life" (Taubes).

It is interesting that there does appear to be an increase in sea level along the coastlines. According to
Robert T. Watson, IPCC chairman, "We'll see sea level rise that could displace tens of millions of
people...and whole islands...could be significantly inundated. The shorelines of America could be
severely attacked." But Dr. David Aubrey, oceanographer and senior scientist with the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, states that "I have seen no convincing evidence that recent
sea level rises are caused by human effects or global warming" (Hoyt). And even global warming
proponents' estimates have been steadily falling; initially, it was projected by the EPA that an
atmospheric CO2 doubling would cause 80-120 inches of rise, but by 1990 the estimate was a quarter of
that. In 1996, a UN science advisory panel, predicted a rise of only 15-22 inches by 2100. Even these
smaller estimates are quite uncertain, for sea level changes are terribly difficult to measure. Historical
data are based on tide gauges, which are mainly from Northern Europe and North America. Long-term
trends can be found only after the data is adjusted for waves, storm surges, and tidal variations (Singer -
Sky). In addition, the land itself may be rising or falling. The Mid-Atlantic US coast, for example, is falling
as a bulge formed by Ice Age glaciers slowly settles, according to the Detroit News in 1996 (Hoyt). The
global sea level record as reconstructed and adjusted shows an interesting trend: levels have been rising
at about 7 inches per century for several centuries over which much fluctuation of global climate has
occurred. It is now believed that slow tectonic changes have caused the steady rise, not the melting
glaciers some global warming theorists propose. Incidentally, the World Glacier Monitoring Service in
Zurich determined that between 1926 and 1960, when the planet was supposedly cooler than today,
70% of US and European glaciers retreated. Since 1980, however, 55% of those same glaciers have
advanced (Carlisle). This would not support the theory that global warming is happening now, it is
melting glaciers, and that water is causing a rise in sea level. While global warming may cause
mountainous glaciers to melt and a thermal expansion of water, accelerating the natural rise, it also may
cause more water to evaporate from the surface of warmer oceans, leading to greater rainfall and a
thickening of polar icecaps. Data from the period of warming from 1900-1940 shows a sea level drop,
while the subsequent cooler period showed a rise in sea level (Singer - Sky).

Other areas of life global warming has an effect upon are those affected by attempts to stop global
warming. Some people (Clark, Kerr - Greenhouse Report) suggest that small changes, such as using high-
efficiency compact fluorescent lights, using self-powered or public transportation more often, etc., could
make a big impact on the global warming problem (assuming it exists). This would go along with the idea
expressed by some scientists that the only actions that should be taken until there is more certainty are
those that would (or should) be taken anyway . But will people do these things if they don't have to?
Some other scientists are more pessimistic.

Greater measures are suggested by these people. As Cotton and Pielke state in Human Impacts on
Weather and Climate, "Clearly, reductions in CO2 emissions in these countries [the US, China, and the
former Soviet Union] will have a significant impact on global CO2 emissions and reduce the chance that
human activity will have a significant impact on weather and climate." In working with such an uncertain
issue, one can only weigh one's risks, look at the costs and benefits of all alternatives, and take one's
most competent guess at what the best course of action is. In the face of all this uncertainty, I would
propose a sort of Climatologists' Wager (a variation of Pascal's Wager to this issue). Let's assume for a
moment that there is a global warming occurring. If this is anthropogenic global warming and it will have
a negative impact on climate and life, then we must take action. If this is not anthropogenic global
warming and warming will have a negative effect on climate and life, nothing can be done. If there is no
anthropogenic global warming and the warming will not have a negative effect on climate and life,
nothing need be done. Likewise, if humans have caused the global warming but it will not have a
negative impact on climate and life, no action is necessary.

But there is one other dimension to choosing what to do: assuming that anthropogenic global warming
is occurring and it will negatively impact climate and life, one must weigh the costs and benefits of
maintaining that risk against the costs and benefits of action. Let us take the Kyoto Protocol as an
example. President Clinton signed it on November 12, 1998, but he is waiting to give it to the Senate.
This agreement, if ratified by the Senate, would force the US to cut GHG emissions (mostly of CO2) to
7% below the 1990 levels within the next 10 to 14 years. The costs of this mandatory decrease in
emissions are substantial. Compliance would cost the US $3.3 trillion from 2001 to 2020, or $30,000 per
household. Gas prices are expected to increase by 65 cents a gallon or more. Residents of Michigan are
expected to have to pay 77.3% more for home heating oil, 73.5% more for natural gas, and 64.2% more
for electricity. Industries and businesses will suffer. It is thought that some of the hardest hit sectors will
include energy-intensive manufacturing (such as automobiles, cement, iron, steel, chemicals, aluminum,
etc.), transportation, telecommunications, paper and allied products, petroleum refining, and utilities.
Wages and salaries would fall, while food, housing, and medical costs rose. The state of Michigan would
lose 96,500 jobs (49,800 in manufacturing), $9.3 billion in output, and $3.4 billion in tax revenues,
decreasing the ability of the state to provide even more greatly needed social services. It is expected
that the jobless rate would reach 5.5% and 1.1 million US jobs would be lost (Novak, Littmann).

This would be a grim picture if these changes were known to be necessary for survival. But a far grimmer
picture is one of going through all this economic hardship for an unproven theory, and then potentially
discovering that these costly changes really had a negligible effect upon climate and life as a whole.
There is no scientific understanding of what GHG level is "dangerous." How can we, then, regulate what
the level should be, not knowing if the danger is above or below the standard we would set? For that
matter, how can the 1992 Global Climate Treaty say that its purpose is to "achieve stabilization of
greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous
anthropogenic interference with the climate system" (Singer - Scientific)? It also seems a bit funny that
only a fast-growing, prosperous society would best be able to afford the extra technology to make itself
cleaner, healthier, and safer, but this treaty would certainly not have that effect upon the US economy.
In not sanctioning developing countries, Kyoto almost encourages industry to move from the reasonably
efficient and well-regulated developed countries to the developing countries, which have few (if any)
regulations on pollution. S. Fred Singer has an interesting thought in "Dangers From the Global Climate
Treaty": "This [the Kyoto Protocol] has been rightly labeled a transfer of money from the poor in the rich
countries to the rich in the poor countries." Meanwhile, climate scientists who support the
anthropogenic global warming theory say that it is unlikely that the Kyoto Protocol will even temporarily
slow the accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere. Jerry Mahlman, director of the Geophysical Fluid
Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton, states that "it might take another 30 Kyotos over the next century" to
cut global warming down to size (Malakoff).

Fact and Fiction:

FICTION: Even if the Earth is warming, we cant be sure how much, if any, of the warming is caused by
human activities.

FACT: There is international scientific consensus that most of the warming over the last 50 years is due
to human activities, not natural causes. Over millions of years, animals and plants lived, died and were
compressed to form huge deposits of oil, gas and coal. In little more than 300 years, however, we have
burned a large amount of this storehouse of carbon to supply energy.

Today, the by-products of fossil fuel use billions of tons of carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide),
methane, and other greenhouse gases form a blanket around the Earth, trapping heat from the sun,
unnaturally raising temperatures on the ground, and steadily changing our climate.

The impacts associated with this deceptively small change in temperature are evident in all corners of
the globe. There is heavier rainfall in some areas, and droughts in others. Glaciers are melting, Spring is
arriving earlier, oceans are warming, and coral reefs are dying.

FICTION: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts an increase in the global average
temperature of only 1.4C to 5.8C over the coming century.
This small change, less than the current daily temperature range for most major cities, is hardly cause
for concern.

FACT: Global average temperature is calculated from temperature readings around the Earth. While
temperature does vary considerably at a daily level in any one place, global average temperature is
remarkably constant. According to analyses of ice cores, tree rings, pollen and other climate proxies,
the average temperature of the Northern Hemisphere had varied up or down by only a few tenths of a
degree Celsius between 1000 AD and about 1900, when a rapid warming began.

A global average temperature change ranging from 1.4C to 5.8C would translate into climate-related
impacts that are much larger and faster than any that have occurred during the 10 000-year history of
civilization.

From scientific analyses of past ages, we know that even small global average temperature changes can
lead to large climate shifts. For example, the average global temperature difference between the end of
the last ice age (when much of the Northern Hemisphere was buried under thousands of feet of ice) and
todays interglacial climate is only about 5C .

FICTION: Warming cannot be due to greenhouse gases, since changes in temperature and changes in
greenhouse gas emissions over the past century did not occur simultaneously.

FACT: The slow heating of the oceans creates a significant time lag between when carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere and when changes in temperature occur.

This is one of the main reasons why we dont see changes in temperature at the same time as changes
in greenhouse gas emissions. You can see the same process occur in miniature when you heat up a pot
of water on the stove: there is a time lag between the time you turn on the flame and when the water
starts to boil.

In addition, there are many other factors that affect year-to-year variation in the Earths temperature.
For example, volcanic eruptions, El Nio, and small changes in the output of the sun can all affect the
global climate on a yearly basis.
Therefore, you would not expect the build-up of greenhouse gases to exactly match trends in global
climate. Still, scientific evidence points clearly to anthropogenic (or human-made) greenhouse gases as
the main culprit for climate change.

FICTION: Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere fairly quickly, so if global warming turns out
to be a problem, we can wait to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions until after we start to
see the impacts of warming.

FACT: Carbon dioxide, a gas created by the burning of fossil fuels (like gasoline and coal), is the most
important human-made greenhouse gas.
Carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use is produced in huge quantities and can persist in our atmosphere for
as long as 200 years.

This means that if emissions of carbon dioxide were halted today, it would take centuries for the
amount of carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere to come down to what it was in pre-industrial times.
Thus we need to act now if we want to avoid the increasingly dangerous consequences of climate
change in the future.

FICTION: Human activities contribute only a small fraction of carbon dioxide emissions, an amount too
small to have a significant effect on climate, particularly since the oceans absorb most of the extra
carbon dioxide emissions.

FACT: Before human activities began to dramatically increase carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere,
the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from natural sources closely matched the amount that was
stored or absorbed through natural processes.
For example, as forests grow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis;
this carbon is then sequestered in wood, leaves, roots and soil. Some carbon is later released back to the
atmosphere when leaves, roots and wood die and decay.

Carbon dioxide also cycles through the ocean Plankton living at the oceans surface absorb carbon
dioxide through photosynthesis. The plankton and animals that eat the plankton then die and fall to the
bottom of the ocean. As they decay, carbon dioxide is released into the water and returns to the surface
via ocean currents. As a result of these natural cycles, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air had
changed very little for 10,000 years. But that balance has been upset by man.

Since the Industrial Revolution, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil has put about twice as
much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than is naturally removed by the oceans and forests. This has
resulted in carbon dioxide levels building up in the atmosphere.

Today, carbon dioxide levels are 30% higher than pre-industrial levels, higher than they have been in the
last 420,000 years and are probably at the highest levels in the past 20 million years. Studies of the
Earths climate history have shown that even small, natural changes in carbon dioxide levels were
generally accompanied by significant shifts in the global average temperature.

We have already experienced a 1F increase in global temperature in the past century, and we can
expect significant warming in the next century if we fail to act to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

FICTION: The Earth has warmed rapidly in the past without dire consequences, so society and
ecosystems can adapt readily to any foreseeable warming.

FACT: The Earth experienced rapid warming in some places at the end of the last glacial period, but for
the last 10,000 years our global climate has been relatively stable. During this period, as agriculture and
civilization developed, the worlds population has grown tremendously. Now, many heavily populated
areas, such as urban centers in low-lying coastal zones, are highly vulnerable to climate shifts.

In addition, many ecosystems and species that are already threatened by existing pressures (such as
pollution, habitat conversion and degradation) may be further pressured to the point of extinction by a
changing climate.

FICTION: The buildup of carbon dioxide will lead to a greening of the Earth because plants can utilize
the extra carbon dioxide to speed their growth.

FACT: Carbon dioxide has been shown to act as a fertilizer for some plant species under some
conditions. In addition, a longer growing season (due to warmer temperatures) could increase
productivity in some regions.

However, there is also evidence that plants can acclimatize to higher carbon dioxide levels that means
plants may grow faster for only a short time before returning to previous levels of growth.

Another problem is that many of the studies in which plant growth increased due to carbon dioxide
fertilization were done in greenhouses where other nutrients, which plants need to survive, were
adequately supplied.

In nature, plant nutrients like nitrogen as well as water are often in short supply. Thus, even if plants
have extra carbon dioxide available, their growth might be limited by a lack of water and nutrients.
Finally, climate change itself could lead to decreased plant growth in many areas because of increased
drought, flooding and heat waves.

Whatever benefit carbon dioxide fertilization may bring, it is unlikely to be anywhere near enough to
counteract the adverse impacts of a rapidly changing climate.

FICTION: If Earth has warmed since pre-industrial times, it is because the intensity of the sun has
increased.

FACT: The suns intensity does vary. In the late 1970s, sophisticated technology was developed that can
directly measure the suns intensity. Measurements from these instruments show that in the past 20
years the suns variations have been very small.

Indirect measures of changes in suns intensity since the beginning of the industrial revolution in 1750
show that variations in the suns intensity do not account for all the warming that occurred in the 20th
century and that the majority of the warming was caused by an increase in human-made greenhouse
gas emissions.

FICTION: It is hard enough to predict the weather a few days in advance. How can we have any
confidence in projections of climate a hundred years from now?

FACT: Climate and weather are different. Weather refers to temperatures, precipitation and storms on a
given day at a particular place. Climate reflects a long-term average, sometimes over a very large area,
such as a continent or even the entire Earth.

Averages over large areas and periods of time are easier to estimate than the specific characteristics of
weather.
For example, although it is notoriously difficult to predict if it will rain or the exact temperature of any
particular day at a specific location, we can predict with relative certainty that on average, in the
Northeastern United States, it will be colder in December than in July.

In addition, climate models are now sophisticated enough to be able to recreate past climates, including
climate change over the last hundred years. This adds to our confidence that projections of future
climates are accurate.

Finally, when we report climate projections, we use a range of results from climate models that
represent the boundaries of our projections (whats the least global average temperature could change
to whats the most global average temperature could change) and our degree of certainty of the
projections.
FICTION: The science of global climate change cannot tell us the amount by which man-made emissions
of greenhouse gases should be reduced in order to slow global warming.

FACT: The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change states that emissions of greenhouse gases
should be reduced to avoid dangerous interference with the climate system. Scientists have
subsequently attempted to define what constitutes dangerous interference.
One study (ONeill and Oppenheimer, 2002) supplies three criteria that could be used:

1) risk to threatened ecosystems such as coral reefs

2) large-scale disruptions caused by changes in the climate system, such as sea-level rise caused by the
break-up of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and

3) large-scale disruptions of the climate system itself, such as the shutdown of the thermohaline
circulation of the Atlantic Ocean (the Gulf stream), which would result in a severe drop in temperature
to Europe.

This study projects that if C02 concentrations are capped at 450 parts per million (ppm), major
disruptions to climate systems may be avoided, although some damage (such as that to coral reefs) may
be unavoidable.

Current estimates of atmospheric CO2 concentrations likely to be reached without aggressive action to
limit greenhouse gas emissions are far higher from 550 ppm to as much as 1000 ppm in the next
hundred years.

FICTION: Because of the uncertainty of climate models, it is extremely difficult to predict exactly what
regional impacts will result from global climate change.

FACT: According to the IPCC, certain climate trends are highly likely to occur if greenhouse gas emissions
continue at their current rate or increase: sea level will rise; droughts will increase in some areas,
flooding in others; temperatures will rise, leading to heat waves becoming more common and glaciers
likely to melt at a more rapid rate.

Regional impacts are very likely to occur, but exactly when and what they will be is harder to predict.

This is because:

1) regional climate models are more computer intensive than global climate models they take longer
to run and are more difficult to calibrate, and

2) many non-climate factors contribute to impacts at regional levels. For example, the risk of mosquito-
borne illnesses like Dengue fever and malaria may rise due to increased temperatures, but the actual
likelihood of infection will depend greatly on the effectiveness of public health measures in place.
A Better World Climate: How Do We Get There From Here?

As has been stated previously, there are a great many unanswered questions about global warming. We
wonder whether or not there really is an anthropogenic global warming or the threat of one because we
don't have the perfect climate model to tell us so. And we don't have this model because we don't
understand what is going on; we don't understand how the atmospheric system interacts with the
oceans, the terrestrial biosphere, the cryosphere, or any of its other contributing factors. Therefore, the
research that should be first and foremost in our minds is that to better understand the rich
interrelationships between these bodies as well as the various features of each that may not be well
understood. The effect of clouds, for example, on warming and vice versa are not understood very well.
Do they simply cool by reflecting heat back to space, or is their role more complex than that? What
effect does each shape and size of cloud have? What outside factors have an effect upon cloud
formation? And, most importantly, how can we best relate these effects into GCMs?

Likewise, aerosols are in need of study. Do they simply cause cooling by reflecting solar radiation back
out into space, or, as one researcher stated, is that effect canceled out by heating through reflection of
terrestrial radiation back to earth and give their real cooling effect by fortifying clouds with water
droplets, giving them a higher albedo?

Are variations in solar radiation and sunspot cycles behind part or all of the perceived global warming?
Could there be changes in the sun's energy output that would cause warming such as some have
observed?

How does the tropical ocean interact with global atmospheric circulation, given that tropical cyclones
(hurricanes) form there? Are there any special processes at work there that would affect the global
warming theory? Likewise, how do the atmosphere, the ocean, and sea ice interact at high latitudes?

What, exactly, is the terrestrial biosphere's place in the carbon cycle? How much CO2 does different
types of vegetation, soil, or rock absorb? If CO2 is shown to be a substantial problem, would there be
any way to make parts of the terrestrial biosphere take on more CO2? What effect would that have on
the various ecosystems involved?

And on and on the potential questions go. As can be seen above, there are a lot of different directions
global warming research can go in and is going in. All of these would be helpful in trying to better
determine the climatic direction we as a planet are headed in. But there is one other dimension to this
attempt to better understand global warming: the modeling. Currently, even the most sophisticated and
encompassing of the GCMs is incredibly crude and oversimplified compared to the actual atmospheric
system and its feedbacks. And so, given new findings in research related to above topics and others, we
must continue to update the models. We must keep working on the models, improving them, until flux
corrections or "fudge factors," as they are called, are unnecessary to make them properly predict
today's conditions. As computer technologies continually become smaller and faster and more capable
of complex systems, we must keep shrinking the scale of the models and bringing in more variables to
account for or better, more detailed understanding of the existing variables. To have a perfect model,
every variable, every ocean eddy and sulfate particle would have to be accounted for. While this is
improbable as a state of modeling, we can continue to try to better explain what is going on and how
things are connected and interrelated by bringing bigger and better understandings of atmospheric
intricacies to the modeling table.

Unfortunately for these global climate change researchers, the computer industry is not moving nearly
fast enough for this research. In many ways, climatologists are waiting on the computer industry to build
more powerful supercomputers so they can make more complex models to take advantage of that
computing power. And yet, there is at least a small advantage to waiting: many valuable studies being
conducted with innovative, legitimate methods simply haven't been collecting data long enough to be as
useful as possible. Satellite data is a good example of this. If we wait, the data will be better.

And so, we can see that the science behind global warming is far from settled. Much is not known and
conflicting theories abound, as they often do in scientific forums. New ideas and new studies keep the
science of global climate change going, keep it second guessing itself, keep it looking for newer, better
ways to explain what's going on. In the end, global climate change may be a way for science to prove it
can work well even under the most uncertain of circumstances.