Letter: Warming argument lacks proof

• Published: Jul 23, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Gerson paints a picture of ice loss and oceans acting like a “brimming bathtub,” then dubiously claims “an increasingly compelling case for [man-made] global warming.”

Trouble is, his argument lacks historical context and proof. No surprise, given a complete dearth of experimental proof for man-made global warming.

Fossils from our Holocene Era reveal a northern tree line approaching the Arctic Ocean. Surely it was warm enough then to preclude pack ice, and perhaps summer ice, from natural causes, and at only three-quarters of today’s carbon-dioxide level.

Gerson seems unaware of past periods warmer than our own, large variations in sea level increase and higher carbon-dioxide levels during ice ages.

Paleoclimatology shows that climate always changes, demonstrating that present climate has natural precedents, and isn’t extreme. Climate that seems unusual, but falls within the natural envelope of past climate, is no proof of man-made global warming.

Dire predictions of catastrophe from that bottomless pit of disasters du jour, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are based solely on computer models that amount to poorly crafted mathematical opinions, not experimental proof. They didn’t predict the absence of warming now occurring. They seriously overestimated when asked to replicate measured land temperatures from measured atmospheric temperatures. They need constant rework to match current climate as it evolves. They never come with error estimates, which would be so large as to render the results meaningless.

But if you must believe, then believe this. Models predict that the unique signature of man-made global warming is amplified atmospheric heat-up, most pronounced in the tropics, about two to three times the heating rate of ground directly below. Actual measurements show atmospheric and land heating rates to be similar, consistent with natural warming. In other words, the very models that predict future catastrophe show that man-made global warming is not occurring.

Recent analysis of IPCC methodology reveals misuse of basic physics principles overestimating projected warming by 500 percent to 2000 percent. Recent “climate sensitivity” measurement, a technical term for the rate that Earth sheds energy, is much lower than assumed, leading to a limit of 0.5° Celsius warming by 2100, whether warming is man-made or not. However, a shift to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation cold phase suggests 20-30 years of cooling ahead. There is much more.

Return to climate sanity requires the media to kick a crisis addiction, scientists to seek truth ahead of fat grants, politicians to put service over messiahship and their tax reflex, energy initiatives to stop using man-made global warming to rationalize their otherwise legitimate positions, and a public willing to dig past agendas (apologies to sincere man-made global warming believers).

There is no proof that man-made carbon dioxide causes additional warming, or that carbon-dioxide reduction would reduce warming. Problem mitigation and conservation are the right approach.