Re: OT: However, Tick will enjoy this article

Group: alt.support.mult-sclerosis Date: Sat, Apr 7, 2007, 6:01pm (CDT-2)
From: Sylv772003@xxxxxxxxx (Sylv)
On Apr 6, 11:19 pm, never@million wrote:
Tick, I saw this article while surfing around the net.
Donn
And I found this in "The York Times. It was also in the "Wall Street
Journal," but I didn't feel like paying to get the whole article there.
Sylvia
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Sylvia, then there's this from Newsweek

No Such Thing As a 'Perfect' Temperature
By Richard S. Lindzen
Newsweek International

April 16, 2007 issue - Judging from the media in recent months, the
debate over global warming is now over. There has been a net warming of
the earth over the last century and a half, and our greenhouse gas
emissions are contributing at some level. Both of these statements are
almost certainly true.

What of it? Recently many people have said that the earth is facing a
crisis requiring urgent action. This statement has nothing to do with
science. There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we've
seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe. What most
commentatorsâ?"and many scientistsâ?"seem to miss is that the
only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes.

The earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a
degree a year; periods of constant average temperatures are rare.
Looking back on the earth's climate history, it's apparent that there's
no such thing as an optimal temperatureâ?"a climate at which
everything is just right. The current alarm rests on the false
assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise,
but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more
reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.

A warmer climate could prove to be more beneficial than the one we have
now. Much of the alarm over climate change is based on ignorance of what
is normal for weather and climate. There is no evidence, for instance,
that extreme weather events are increasing in any systematic way,
according to scientists at the U.S. National Hurricane Center, the World
Meteorological Organization and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (which released the second part of this year's report earlier
this month).

Indeed, meteorological theory holds that, outside the tropics, weather
in a warming world should be less variable, which might be a good thing.

In many other respects, the ill effects of warming are overblown. Sea
levels, for example, have been increasing since the end of the last ice
age. When you look at recent centuries in perspective, ignoring
short-term fluctuations, the rate of sea-level rise has been relatively
uniform (less than a couple of millimeters a year).

There's even some evidence that the rate was higher in the first half of
the twentieth century than in the second half. Overall, the risk of
sea-level rise from global warming is less at almost any given location
than that from other causes, such as tectonic motions of the earth's
surface.

Many of the most alarming studies rely on long-range predictions using
inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot
accurately forecast the weather a week from now. Interpretations of
these studies rarely consider that the impact of carbon on temperature
goes downâ?"not upâ?"the more carbon accumulates in the
atmosphere. Even if emissions were the sole cause of the recent
temperature riseâ?"a dubious propositionâ?"future increases
wouldn't be as steep as the climb in emissions.

Indeed, one overlooked mystery is why temperatures are not already
higher. Various models predict that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere
will raise the world's average temperature by as little as 1.5 degrees
Celsius or as much as 4.5 degrees. The important thing about doubled CO2
(or any other greenhouse gas) is its "forcing" its contribution to
warming. At present, the greenhouse forcing is already about
three-quarters of what one would get from a doubling of CO2. But average
temperatures rose only about 0.6 degrees since the beginning of the
industrial era, and the change hasn't been uniform warming has largely
occurred during the periods from 1919 to 1940 and from 1976 to 1998,
with cooling in between. Researchers have been unable to explain this
discrepancy.

Modelers claim to have simulated the warming and cooling that occurred
before 1976 by choosing among various guesses as to what effect poorly
observed volcanoes and unmeasured output from the sun have had. These
factors, they claim, don't explain the warming of about 0.4 degrees C
between 1976 and 1998. Climate modelers assume the cause must be
greenhouse-gas emissions because they have no other explanation. This is
a poor substitute for evidence, and simulation hardly constitutes
explanation.

Ten years ago climate modelers also couldn't account for the warming
that occurred from about 1050 to 1300. They tried to expunge the
medieval warm period from the observational recordâ?"an effort that
is now generally discredited.

The models have also severely underestimated short-term variability El
Niño and the Intraseasonal Oscillation. Such phenomena illustrate
the ability of the complex and turbulent climate system to vary
significantly with no external cause whatever, and to do so over many
years, even centuries.

Is there any point in pretending that CO2 increases will be
catastrophic? Or could they be modest and on balance beneficial? India
has warmed during the second half of the 20th century, and agricultural
output has increased greatly.

Infectious diseases like malaria are a matter not so much of temperature
as poverty and public-health policies (like eliminating DDT). Exposure
to cold is generally found to be both more dangerous and less
comfortable.

Moreover, actions taken thus far to reduce emissions have already had
negative consequences without improving our ability to adapt to climate
change. An emphasis on ethanol, for instance, has led to angry protests
against corn-price increases in Mexico, and forest clearing and habitat
destruction in Southeast Asia.

Carbon caps are likely to lead to increased prices, as well as
corruption associated with permit trading. (Enron was a leading lobbyist
for Kyoto because it had hoped to capitalize on emissions trading.) The
alleged solutions have more potential for catastrophe than the putative
problem. The conclusion of the late climate scientist Roger Revelle, Al
Gore's supposed mentor, is worth pondering: the evidence for global
warming thus far doesn't warrant any action unless it is justifiable on
grounds that have nothing to do with climate.

Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has always been
funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from
any energy companies.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek/
© 2007 MSNBC.com

*****Don't Cry Because It's Over, Smile Because It Happened*****

.

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